Vintage Classics: The Key

“This year I intend to begin writing freely about a topic which, in the past, I have hesitated to mention even here. I have always avoided commenting on my sexual relations with Ikuko, for fear that she might surreptitiously read by diary and be offended.”

So begins ‘The Key’ – a forthright and moving tale of a middle-aged man deeply in love with his younger wife. In spite of that love, they have grown physically apart, each unsure of the other’s thoughts and desires . . . until the day Ikuko discovers the key to her husband’s diary with its desperate hints of jealousy and voyeurism. The key, she realises, to his very soul . . .