from one of japans greatest modern writers comes an exquisitely disturbing novel of sexual combat and concealed passion a work that distills beauty longing and loathing into an intoxicating poisoned cocktail an aging embittered novelist sets out to avenge himself on the women who have betrayed him he finds the perfect instrument in yuichi a young man whose beauty makes him irresistible to women but who is just discovering his attraction to other menas yuichis mentor presses him into a loveless marriage and a series of equally loveless philanderings his protg enters the gay underworld of postwar japan in that hidden society of parks and tearooms prostitutes and aristocratic blackmailers yuichi is as defenseless as any of the women he preys on mordantly observed intellectually provocative and filled with icy eroticism forbidden colors is a masterpiece