Letters

The Letter (Japanese title: Tegami) is a full-length novel by Keigo Higashino and was shortlisted for the Naoki Prize. The novel opens with a theft and murder: after the death of their parents, Tsuyoshi Mushima and his younger brother Naoki Mushima depend on each other for survival. Tsuyoshi loses his job after a workplace injury and, in a desperate attempt to raise money for his brother's tuition, resorts to burglary. While breaking into a house, he is discovered by the elderly Mrs. Ogata and, in a panic, kills her. He is subsequently imprisoned. Though it is the elder brother who is convicted of the crime, the innocent Naoki is branded for life as "the murderer's brother": his studies, job prospects, romantic relationships, and dream of becoming a singer are time and again driven off course by the unsparing gaze of society. The two brothers can communicate only through letters, and those letters—filled with concern and with requests that Naoki apologize to the victim's family—become a crushing burden on Naoki, even prompting him at one point to cut off all contact with his brother. The novel relies scarcely at all on detective plotting, directing its attention instead toward the existential predicament and psychological cost borne by the family of a criminal, asking how, under a social logic of "never causing trouble for others," crime and punishment spread to those who are entirely blameless. The work partakes at once of the crime novel, the coming-of-age novel, the romance, and the social-problem novel, and is regarded by scholars of Higashino as the culmination of his art. It has twice been adapted for Japanese film and television and has also been staged multiple times as a musical.