The Boy in the Earth by Fuminori Nakamura Review

A depressed taxi driver and his alcoholic girlfriend stumble through life. They both hate living. That’s it! 

So this is definitely no Scorsese’s Taxi Driver - that film had a story! Not that Fuminori Nakamura’s The Boy in the Earth makes any attempt at one. It’s just one long misery-fest: the taxi driver hates himself and gets beat up, drinks, hurts himself some more, then we find out the sad details of his abusive childhood and the story’s over. 

In place of a story are the endlessly morbid utterances between the taxi driver and his alcoholic girlfriend about how bleak and horrible the world is. It might’ve been compelling if there was anything original or thoughtful about the remarks but there isn’t - it’s gratuitously grim for the sake of it. 

Absolutely pointless extended gripe about nothing, The Boy in the Earth is the literary version of the demented mumblings of a drunk sat in his own filth on a subway platform at three in the morning.