Brian's Reviews > The Bridegroom Was a Dog

Yoko Tawada is good. This book of 3 short narratives is the first of her works to be translated in English. These twisted tales are funny and slightly sinister. In the title story, a ‘cram’ school teacher tells her students a story about a little princess whose hand in marriage is promised to a dog as a reward for licking her bottom clean; only to have her own life turned upside down by the sudden appearance of a dog-like man with a predilection for the same part of her anatomy. The second story, Missing Heels, a mail-order bride arrives at her new husband’s home. She attempts to learn the culture of her new homeland and normalcy is questioned. She appears to have missing heels and it appears her husband is of a somewhat different species. The last story, The Gotthard Railway, is about a reporter fixated on entering things.

I’ve never been inside a man. Everyone was once trapped in the belly of a woman we call Mother, and yet we go to our graves without knowing what a father’s body is like inside.