Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

Butter (2017) is a contemporary work of literary fiction written by Japanese author Asako Yuzuki and translated by Polly Barton. Tokyo’s Shinchosha Publishing Company originally published the novel. The novel is loosely based on the true story of Kanae Kijima, a woman convicted of killing three lovers and publicly known as the Konkatsu Killer.

The novel is set in contemporary Tokyo, Japan, and written from the third-person point of view. Except for one chapter, the third-person narration is limited to the protagonist Rika Machida’s perspective. Rika, a 33-year-old journalist, becomes interested in Manako Kajii’s story after Rika’s colleague covers the story on Kajii’s arrest for murder. Convinced that the public has treated Kajii unkindly because she’s an overweight food blogger, Rika starts visiting her in prison. The more time she spends with Kajii, the more interested Rika becomes in food. She starts eating and cooking according to Kajii’s instructions—a new pastime that challenges her impressions of Kajii and her regard for herself. Rika’s investigative work and culinary adventures develop the novel’s explorations of Cooking as Love and Care, Societal Pressures of Body Image, and the Quest for Self-Realization and Liberation. 

This guide refers to the 2024 HarperCollins paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of death, emotional abuse, gender discrimination, sexual violence, and disordered eating. 

Plot Summary

Rika Machida reconnects with her best friend, Reiko Sayama, when she visits her and her husband, Ryōsuke, for dinner one night. Rika has felt resentful toward Reiko ever since she quit her job, cast off her feminist values, and devoted all her energy to trying to get pregnant. However, Reiko’s delicious cooking takes her aback. Recently intrigued by the mysterious Manako Kajii’s case, Rika confides in her friend over dinner. A once-popular food blogger, Kajii was allegedly involved in the deaths of three men she met online. Because Rika wants to meet and interview her, Reiko suggests she write to her about her recipes.

Using Reiko’s advice, Rika secures a meeting with Kajii at the Detention House, where she is imprisoned until her retrial in the spring. Kajii opens up to Rika, glad to have someone she can talk to about food. She instructs Rika to buy high-quality butter and make herself a simple rice dish. Then she wants Rika to report back to her.

Rika uses her kitchen for the first time in years and cooks the rice according to Kajii’s instructions. The taste of the butter overwhelms her.

Over the following weeks, Rika continues to visit Kajii and eat, dine, and cook according to her instructions. She visits new restaurants, tries new pasta dishes, and even bakes a cake for her boyfriend, Makoto Fujimura. Kajii is convinced Makoto is a stingy person and lover and thinks that eating Rika’s fresh-baked cake will change him. Rika borrows her contact and friend Yoshinori Shinoi’s kitchen to make the recipe. While baking with Shinoi, she starts to see her friend differently. She then brings the cake to Makoto. He enjoys the treat and withholds his usual comments about Rika performing unnecessary domestic tasks.

Meanwhile, Rika begins to gain weight. Her friends and colleagues start criticizing her appearance. Makoto thinks she has no self-control, and her colleagues think she’s compromising her reputation in the journalism world. Rika tries to eat blander foods to temper her weight gain but soon finds that she doesn’t want to go back to her old, restrictive habits. Reiko suggests that she exercise more to counteract her newly rich diet, but Rika can’t find the time.

Then one day, Kajii tells Rika that she wants her to travel to Niigata and visit her hometown. She’s arranged everything so Rika can visit her mother, Masako, and sister, Anna, and taste her favorite foods in the region. Reiko inserts herself into Rika’s plans. At first, Rika is annoyed but soon realizes that Reiko has a better perspective on the case. Their visit with Kajii’s family convinces Reiko that Kajii is guilty. When Rika returns to Tokyo, Reiko stays behind—telling Rika that she’s going to visit her parents nearby.

In reality, Reiko is visiting a man named Shirō Yokota, who she thinks helped Kajii murder her lovers. She stays with him for three days, cooking and cleaning. At the end of her last day, she realizes Yokota isn’t guilty but that her experience with Yokota is no different than her marriage to Ryōsuke.

Rika visits Kajii and discovers that Reiko has been visiting her, too. Convinced Kajii has endangered her friend, Rika and her colleague seek out Yokota and retrieve Reiko. Rika then asks Shinoi for help caring for Reiko, who’s gone silent since returning home. Shinoi invites their friends to stay at his spare apartment near the office.

In the weeks following, Rika, Reiko, Shinoi, and their colleagues begin spending all of their spare time together at Shinoi’s apartment. Reiko gradually returns to herself and forms a connection with Shinoi. Meanwhile, Rika cooks for her new friend group and decides to buy her own apartment for her friends to come and stay.

In the spring, Rika secures a three-bedroom apartment. She then invites her friends over for a turkey dinner. From her research, she learned that cooking turkey for a dinner party was something Kajii always wanted to do. Although her relationship with Kajii hasn’t sustained itself and Kajii has contested her magazine article, Rika is glad she learned so much about food from her. She successfully cooks the unfamiliar recipe over three days. Her new home and the food she serves thrill her guests. That night, Rika lies in bed, inventing new recipes for the turkey leftovers.