Toddler-Hunting: And Other Stories.(Brief Article)

Kono Taeko, translated by Lucy North, with an additional translation by Lucy Lower. New Directions, $39.95 (480p) ISBN 0-8112-1301-3

A sense of unease permeates this disturbing and exceptional collection of stories centered on unhappy women in postwar Japan who have "never been able to be satisfied by ordinary lovemaking." The focal character of the closing story, "Bone Meat," a scorned woman who suffers an unhealthy passion for seafood, is among the least kinky of these protagonists. Most of Taeko's women have a penchant for being whipped or kicked or struck with ropes with hooks on them--and some seek even darker pleasures. In the title story, Hayashi Akiko, approaching …