"Barn Burning" is an 1983 Short Story by Haruki Murakami, about an older man who forms a relationship with a young woman, until she returns home from vacation with a new boyfriend.
It received an Adaptation Expansion in the form of Burning (2018).
Not to be confused with the 1939 Short Story of the same name by William Faulkner.
Tropes
- Big Eater: The woman is constantly referred to as being famished and starving, and able to eat large portions.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Unlike the movie adaptation, the woman and the narrator were not peers at school and are just over a decade apart in age.
- Karma Houdini: Unlike the movie adaptation, the boyfriend here faces no consequences for his potential murder of the girl and moves on, potentially to a next victim, without alerting anyone.
- No Name Given: No characters are named.
- Only Friend: The boyfriend points out that the woman only has one friend - the narrator. Despite her address book being full of names, he says, she only has one "real" friend.
- Suspicious Missed Messages: When the protagonist goes to the woman's house to check it out, it's because she hasn't answered his messages on the phone. He finds a ton of junk mail, but is unable to locate anybody he can tell. It's not explicitly answered if this is suspicious, but it's one of the only unambiguous indicators that she's even gone.
- Twisted Christmas: Though nothing really comes of it, the narrator's last conversation with the boyfriend takes place at Christmastime.
- Uncertain Doom: It's left heavily implied that the girl is dead, but it's never confirmed.
