Confessions by Kanae Minato, translated by Stephen Snyder (Mulholland Books)

Yuko Moriguchi is a single-mother who teaches at a Middle School. She is thanking her students for participating in “Milk Time”, a program designed by the Ministry of Education to promote dairy products, even if it was without their consent. Moriguchi decided to tender her resignation and on the last day of class before summer vacation, she also had one last lecture to give to her homeroom class.

The apple of her eye is her four-year-old daughter Manami. Unfortunately, her daughter died in an accident on the school grounds. She told her students she was resigning, not just from the school, but from teaching. When one of her students asked if it was because of her daughter, she says that’s part of the reason, but she shocks her students by announcing she’s retiring “Because Manami’s death wasn’t an accident. She was murdered by some of the students in this class.”

So begins Confessions, Kanae Minato’s first novel, originally published in the Japanese language in 2008 with the title of Kokuhaku. It has received many awards including the Detective Novel Prize for New Writers, and the National Booksellers’ Award. The English version was published in 2014 and translated by Stephen Snyder. The book was also adapted into a feature length film in 2010 which also became a major hit. 

Ms. Moriguchi She also shares with her students why she became a teacher and how she ended up being a single mother. She tells them her engagement was called off by her fiance after she got pregnant because her soon-to-be husband discovered that he was HIV positive and didn’t want to burden her and suggested terminating the pregnancy as he feared that the baby would be HIV positive as well. 

After making the shocking announcement that the killers were in the same room as their peers, she talked about Japan’s Juvenile Law. She asked her students if they were aware of why the law was implemented. She tells them, “it was written with the idea that young people are still immature and in the process of becoming adults, so when necessary, the state, in place of parents, needs to find the best way to rehabilitate those who commit crimes”. This meant that a child under sixteen who commits a crime, even an atrocious crime as murder, is handed over to the Family Courts and usually doesn’t even end up in a juvenile detention center. 

Ms. Moriguchi tells the class that she’s surprised by their reaction or lack thereof, knowing full well that two of their peers are murderers. What they can’t understand is why their teacher didn’t go to the police. She tells them, “I’m not noble by keeping the identity of A and B a secret”. She hasn’t told the police because she doesn’t trust the law to punish them. For her parting words, she thanks the class once again for finishing drinking their milk. She also mentions that she added a little extra something to A and B’s milk that morning. A little bit of blood, blood from her ex-fiance. And so begins Ms. Moriguchi’s revenge. 

A psychological thrill that will keep you turning pages until the very end. After Ms. Moriguchi’s last lecture in her homeroom, the story shifts from a different character’s point of view. A powerful story of alienation, abandonment, bullying, mind-games, and murder. It’s not a simple whodunit as you already know who the criminals are. It’s what happens after the teacher’s speech that makes this a novel that’s hard to put down. ~Ernie Hoyt