Audition

This theme arises in multiple contexts—both in the narrator’s authentic relationships and in the faux-familial bonds that Xavier’s presence engineers. Even at the novel’s outset, the narrator’s marriage to Tomas is fraught with the tension of her past betrayals and the couple’s unspoken feelings. This issue is illustrated in the narrator’s sense of genuine surprise whenever she learns something about Tomas that contradicts her previous understanding of him—or more accurately, her interpretation of who she believes him to be. Similarly, the narrator acts in ways that defy the expectations and baselines of their marriage, and she therefore feels that she must repay this intangible emotional “debt” by instituting performatively affectionate rituals, such as making Tomas breakfast. As a result, the pair’s initial dynamic is meant to underscore the strangeness of the family as a social institution, and the strangeness of their specific situation only intensifies when Xavier overcomes the couple’s boundaries and insinuates himself into their lives as a quasi-son.

It is clear that the narrator’s marriage to Tomas is troubled by deep emotional rifts, lurking wells of silence, and unaddressed conflicts, and the narrator’s words suggest that she has withheld aspects of her own personality in order to better play the role of the dutiful wife. In Chapter 2, for example, the narrator talks about the necessity of curbing her impulsive curiosity for Tomas’s sake. In doing so, she consciously suppresses a fundamental part of her nature in order to conform to the version of herself that her husband prefers to experience. In this context, the impulsiveness that defined her youth is supposedly a dormant force, but this claim is immediately contradicted by the fact that the narrator’s impulsive curiosity compels her to meet with Xavier a second time despite her misgivings. 

Later, in Chapter 4, her discussions reveal the deep wounds that the marriage has sustained, particularly surrounding the issue of children—or more accurately, the couple’s lack of children. The narrator explicitly discusses the link between her second pregnancy and her infidelity, recalling her surprise upon discovering Tomas’s enthusiasm over the prospect of fatherhood, which clashed with her sense of Tomas as a person. In the wake of her miscarriage, the narrator engaged in extramarital affairs not because she was dissatisfied with Tomas but because she wanted to satisfy a certain inner restlessness. She tried to compensate for her transgressions by having breakfast with Tomas every morning, but this ongoing ritual has since become a superficial band-aid over a much deeper issue. The narrator knows that Tomas will never confront her about her infidelity, and this fact heightens her guilt. Thus, it is clear that the initial dynamics of the couple’s marriage are already far from healthy, and when Xavier insinuates himself into their lives as a quasi-son, his presence profoundly alters how they see themselves and each other. In this way, the uncanniness of this false family narrative becomes deeply intertwined with the novel’s thematic focus on The Challenge of Performing the Self. 

It is important to note that Kitamura chooses not to depict the moment in which the narrator arrives at a concrete arrangement with Tomas and Xavier, and this omission heightens the strangeness of the sudden shift in their dynamic. Whereas the narrator initially hesitated to accept Xavier’s claim of being her son, she spends much of Part 2 indulging in willful fantasies that reinforce this false narrative, creating a fictional “past” that depicts Xavier as a child, then contrasting his imaginary past behavior with his current behavior patterns. In short, she conjures up the illusion of a lifetime of mothering this man who is essentially a stranger, and she actively draws upon stereotypical family dynamics in order to act out this fantasy. By thinking in terms of a past that never was, the narrator contributes to a bizarre alternate social world in which the three characters behave as a family unit, acting out traditional family interactions and conflicts. For example, the narrator exhibits a doting attitude and accedes to Xavier’s many requests, including his desire to move in with them. 

By contrast, Tomas takes on the fatherly role of urging Xavier to achieve independence, and although he is just as deeply invested in the fantasy, his relationship with Xavier is vaguely antagonistic as each man quietly fights over the giving and withholding of approval. As the book progresses, this faux family dynamic flips in ways that subvert traditional family dynamics. Desperate for Xavier and Hana’s approval, Tomas becomes a dutiful servant to them both, and the narrator therefore becomes the antagonist in Xavier’s life, feeling threatened by Hana’s mediation even as she desires the woman’s approval. Throughout these chapters, Kitamura continually strains common notions of a “typical” family unit, and this rising conflict comes to a head in Chapter 12 when the narrator finds Xavier, Tomas, and Hana in the midst of a childish game and watches the last vestiges of her fantasy family come crashing down around her. At this point, nothing about their dynamic resembles the parent/son arrangement depicted in Chapter 7. This farcical devolution of the original arrangement only occurs because each person needs the others’ approval and attention to validate themselves as individuals. Even after the narrator ends the arrangement, the psychological effects of this bizarre interlude in the characters’ lives remain prominent, especially when Tomas struggles to break free from his emotional attachment to Xavier. The ambiguous ending therefore suggests that neither the narrator nor her husband manage to fully break free of their imposed parental roles.