A taut and compelling depiction of loneliness and obsession. --Paula Hawkins #1 New York Times
bestselling author of The Girl on the Train [It] will keep you firmly in its grip. --Oyinkan
Braithwaite bestselling author of My Sister the Serial Killer The love child of Eugene
Ionesco and Patricia Highsmith. --Kelly Link bestselling author of Get in Trouble A
bestselling prizewinning novel by one of Japan's most acclaimed young writers for fans of
Convenience Store Woman Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and the movies Parasite and Rear
Window I think what I'm trying to say is that I've been wanting to become friends with the
Woman in the Purple Skirt for a very long time... Almost every afternoon the Woman in the
Purple Skirt sits on the same park bench where she eats a cream bun while the local children
make a game of trying to get her attention. Unbeknownst to her she is being watched--by the
Woman in the Yellow Cardigan who is always perched just out of sight monitoring which buses
she takes what she eats whom she speaks to. From a distance the Woman in the Purple Skirt
looks like a schoolgirl but there are age spots on her face and her hair is dry and stiff.
She is single she lives in a small apartment and she is short on money--just like the Woman
in the Yellow Cardigan who lures her to a job as a housekeeper at a hotel where she too is a
housekeeper. Soon the Woman in the Purple Skirt is having an affair with the boss and all eyes
are on her. But no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. That's the
difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt. Studiously deadpan and chillingly
voyeuristic and with the off-kilter appeal of the novels of Ottessa Moshfegh The Woman in the
Purple Skirt explores envy loneliness power dynamics and the vulnerability of unmarried
women in a taut suspenseful narrative about the sometimes desperate desire to be seen.
