[.ca] Dark Water (ISBN 1932234225)

Watery grave:
Water. It gives life, but can take it away. We need it, but it can also kill us in countless ways. And it's the center of "Dark Water," Koji Suzuki's collection of short stories. While the now-legendary "Ring" author has a knack for visceral horror, he just isn't in his element when writing shorts. The most prominent story is "Floating Water," which has already been made into the film "Honogurai mizu no soko kara" and is being remade for American audiences, starring Jennifer Connelly. Newly-divorced Yoshimi and her daughter Ikuko move into a run-down apartment building, where a little girl vanished two years before. But Suzuki doesn't descend to cheap ghosts here. Ikuko finds a "Hello Kitty" bag, which Yoshimi forces her to get rid of. But the bag keeps reappearing on the roof, and Ikuko has started talking with an imaginary playmate. Yoshimi starts to wonder -- what happened to that little girl, and where is she now, if she is haunting the building? The other short stories continue the "water" theme: a young teacher discovers a cruel friend left something on an abandoned island. An abusive fisherman finds that he did something terrible while he was drunk -- and his victim takes her revenge. Spelunkers, boats and sailors take parts in the other stories... always near water. Koji Suzuki is rightly called Japan's answer to Stephen King. In fact, he may well be better than King is. Where other horror authors use cheap chills and gore, Suzuki's stark storytelling keeps it clean. He frightens us with cruelty, with delusions, with looming curses, and with ghosts that the lead characters never actually see. Unfortunately, "Dark Water's" short stories just don't gel. Suzuki doesn't get any time to build up suspense or character development, making the stories feel hollow. And most of them -- most glaringly the first -- ends abruptly. It's like walking down a sidewalk, only to suddenly fall into a pit. Perhaps only "The Hold," one of the most unpleasant stories, has a satisfying finale. However, Suzuki's excellent style makes it worth reading. Everything and everyone is muted and understated, except for the sense of impending disaster and/or suspense hanging over each story. If fans of Suzuki read it solely for his style, then this is definitely a winner. Unfortunately, "Dark Water" is not up to the standards of Suzuki's full-length novels; the short story is not his forte. However, it's still a creepy, watery experience.

Stephen King of Japan?:
I should have been warned off by a book jacket that referred to the author as the "Stephen King of Japan." Much like SK Suzuki is not content to tell a creepy story. It seems that every story must inevitably end with the author spelling everything out for the dimmer readers.