Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

This is another of NPR’s “beach read” suggestions - which goes to show that the folks at NPR have interesting taste. 

 

 Diary of a Void is translated from Japanese, and the title itself is a pun that doesn’t translate into English. 

 

Also a bit lost in translation for us Americans is the culture - parents in Japan get a full year of paid parental leave after a child is born. This, of course, sounds practically insane to Americans, where the best you can hope for in most states is three months of unpaid leave. My home state of California is a bit better - parents get eight weeks of partial pay in untaxed dollars, so a wash for most people. But nothing like a full year. 

 

So, back to the title. Japan also makes available to expectant parents a handbook and diary, called a Boshi Techo, which roughly means “Maternal and Child Health Handbook.” The Japanese title of the book is Kushin Techo, substituting “empty core” for “mother and child.” Hence, Diary of a Void. 

 

The premise of the book is that Ms. Shibata (she never gets a first name) has left her old job due to sexual harassment, only to find that at her new job, she is expected to do a lot of menial tasks in addition to her regular job - picking up trash, making the coffee for everyone - because she is a woman. 

 

In order to avoid this, she claims she is pregnant and that the coffee makes her morning sick. This allows her to avoid these unpaid “women’s work” tasks, go home at five rather than work overtime, and be treated better in general. 

 

The problem: she isn’t pregnant. She’s also single and hasn’t had a date in years. 

 

Rather than admit she made things up, she starts padding her belly, taking maternity aerobics, eating better food, and logging her days in the diary mentioned above. 

 

A strange thing happens along the way, though. She starts having actual pregnancy symptoms, and even gets an ultrasound which reveals a fetus - but with a blurry face. A void, one might say. The book never really resolves at the end. Did she give birth? And to what? We never know for sure. 

 

Along the way, the incidents of the book reveal the casual everyday sexism that women have to put up with, not just in Japan, but pretty much everywhere. And also the way that men are more deferent to pregnant women - perhaps because she is filing that expected role as mother. 

 

The incident that starts the book off really made me laugh, because my wife had a very similar incident at work. 

 

This guy (who I won’t come close to identifying) was dropping hints around my wife that she needed to make him some coffee. He would carry the empty carafe around, looking at it forlornly. She never bailed him out.

 

In the book, there is an even more ludicrous twist: 

 

What seemed of greatest concern to my bosses, rather than when I could clock out, was the question of the coffee. Who would make it? Who was going to deal with the cups? Where was the milk? They asked me to type up step-by-step instructions. One day, when I wasn’t around, they had a meeting in which it was decided that a young guy who’d started right out of college would be in charge of the coffee.

“Hey, this isn’t so bad!” he exclaimed as I showed him what to do. You’re right about that, I said back. That’s why it’s called instant coffee.

 

Yeah. Instant coffee needs instructions. As they say, Strategic Incompetence. In another incident, the narrator describes the other expected tasks.

 

No one ever told me I had to do these things. But if I didn’t take care of it, sooner or later there’d be a little comment.

“Hey…Microwave?”

My name’s not Microwave.

 

Another interesting question was raised when Shibata ends up walking home late, and muses on what would happen if she got mugged. Her bag contained her cell phone and apartment keys. How would she get back in? How would she call someone with no money or phone? 

 

While pregnancy gains her some care from others, there are also the annoyances, like the guys who ask if they can touch her bump. Or don’t even ask. 

 

As time goes by and she gets used to her “pregnancy,” she wonders what her child will look like. And also wonders:

 

As I wrote in my notebook, I wondered: How many other imaginary children were there in the world? And where are they now? What were they doing? I hoped they were leading happy lives.

 

This is the kind of blurred lines that get ever more blurring as the book progresses. There is also the question of what makes a family. 

 

Maybe that’s what making a family is all about: creating an environment in which people make space for one another - maybe without even trying, just naturally, to make sure nobody’s forgotten. 

 

As an idealization of a family, that’s pretty attractive. It sounds a bit like the line in Lilo and Stitch: “Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” 

 

I will admit I felt some pain reading that line. Once, I used to feel that way about my birth family - there was space for me, space for all of us. But I was rudely shocked to discover that there was not space for my wife, and never would be. Once she left, there was no attempt to get her back or repair things, just silence and gaslighting that it was all my fault. 

 

Making space in this case is related to the void. Shibata is making space in herself for…nothing. Or is there something. At the ultrasound, Shibata is stunned. 

 

There was a baby in there. It had a place in the world. It had taken its own form, a human form. Out of nothing.

 

There is an epilogue twelve months after the birth - or whatever it turned out to be - we never see that part and never find out - Shibata is invited to a job fair where she is supposed to praise the company’s family policies. She has a snarky observation, though. 

 

I’m at a job fair today. This panel, “Balancing Your Career and Your Life,” is offered specifically to women, as if work-life balance is something only women need to consider. 

 

Years ago, one of our local judges mentioned this issue, opining that our society has normalized men neglecting their children. She was, unfortunately, right about that. Men do not get asked how they balance work and family. Men do not get the stink eye if they work late every night. And so on. It is normal for a man to neglect his children, and expect his wife to pick up the slack. 

 

And the flip side is that if a man does not neglect his children, but splits childcare and breadwinning with his wife (as I have done since we had kids), she gets blamed for taking on work so that dad can see his kids more. It’s lose-lose for women. 

 

For the most part, this book avoids being preachy. It gently addresses sexism through incident. The secondary theme of the book is social isolation, something I have seen so much in modern Japanese literature. Perhaps they are being more honest about it than we Americans are, with our idolization of “Rugged Individualism™.” 

 

Shibata makes some temporary connections with other pregnant women at the aerobics class, and an awkward friendship with a married co-worker, but in the end, it still feels like she is alone. Her imaginary child isn’t the only void in her life. 

 

Diary of a Void is a fascinating book. It’s short and quick and easy to read, but thought provoking in a way that few beach reads are.