In The Latrine, No One Can Hear You Scream

By Melissa Feldsher in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 18, 2009 9:00PM

While we all have our own personal tales of public-restroom related woe, Japanese horror writer Koji Suzuki (of The Ring) brings an entirely new dimension the phrase scared shitless. Forget you Kindle fans, the future of literature is to be found in Suzuki’s nine-chapter novella written enitrely on a roll of toilet paper.

Suzuki’s The Drop—yes, that’s actually the translation—takes up three feet of toilet paper and can be read in a few minutes. Selling for about $2.20 a roll in Japan, the novella is being promoted as “a horror experience in the toilet." Beyond pure kitsch, the rationale behind this new medium is the Japanese superstition that ghosts traditionally hide in the bathroom.

And here we were afraid of what’s under the bed.