(from Publisher's Weekly) Four women who work the night shift in a Tokyo factory that produces boxed lunches find their lives twisted beyond repair in this grimly compelling crime novel, which won Japan's top mystery award, the Grand Prix, for its already heralded author, now making her first appearance in English. Despite the female bonding, this dark, violent novel is more evocative of Gogol or Dostoyevsky than Thelma and Louise... the gritty realism of everyday existence in the underbelly of Japan's consumer society comes across with pungent force.

I found this book a little slow at the start, and then utterly fascinating. ( )

Wow this is a great book. Fast-paced suspense in a real Japan. Great translation too. Read it! ( )

A gruesome and amazing crime novel that keeps you on the edge from beginning to end. ( )

Out by Natsuo Kirino was not on my list of books to read in this week or even in the near future, but while perusing my bookshelves it caught my eye and my attention for the next 2 days. I'm not even sure when I bought this (common condition among book-buying addicts) but I'm glad I did.
Written by a popular Japanese crime fiction writer, Out is the story of 4 women who work night shifts together in a Tokyo factory. Yayoi kills her abusive husband then enlists the help of her 3 friends. Masako decides they need to dispose of the body with careful and gruesome planning. The only thing they have in common is their bleak lives and disposing of a body does not insure a life-long bond. What occurs next is a mix of conspiracy, blackmail, corruption, insurance fraud, loan-sharking, gambling, and more violence.
I found Out to be gripping, but not just a plot based novel. Kirino takes the reader into the lives of these ordinary women and shows how they can become involved in events they never would have imagined. How far will someone go when pushed, what are we really capable of, and how well do we know ourselves, much less those around us? Out is a phenomenal but very dark, disturbing read. Not recommenced for those that only enjoy light mysteries. It is gritty and thought-provoking. I highly recommend to fans of suspense novels. ( )

Despair lives everywhere; no social strata nor ethnic class nor place is free from its grasp. Natsuo Kirino’s novel Out, however, maps a dark landscape where despair thrives, where hopelessness overwhelms all other emotions and chokes out all but rash judgment. Violence coils in every shadow, hidden just behind the cold, broken stares of the sad people adrift there.

Masako, Yayoi, Yoshie, and Kuniko toil through the bleak night of a graveyard shift in a box lunch factory, isolated by the lonely hours and mindlessness of the job. The four find some small joy in the simple physical labor and the regulated human interaction. Each is confined in the shared inveterate existence by their own peculiar circumstances. Kuniko’s expensive, garish clothes belie her ever growing debt and her self doubt. Yoshie, a grizzled veteran of the factory’s automaton assembly line, returns home each morning to care for her bedridden mother-in-law. Yayoi, the pretty housewife and mother, suffers through her husbands gambling and obsession with club girls. And Masako, the quiet soul of the group, numbly maneuvers through her home, cooking meals for a son who won’t speak to her and a husband who has lost all interest in her. When Yayoi kills her husband, she turns to the group for help in disposing of the body. The murder is attributed to Satako, the owner of the club where Yayoi’s husband gambled, and he sets out to exact retribution.

Kirino’s book frightens with its demonstration of the human capacity for violence and degradation with each more bloody and shocking turn. Straining to break out, the four only ever manage to embroil themselves deeper in their own desperate existence. Hailed by some critics as a comment on the subjugation of women, the book seems to point more to the subjugation of the human spirit rather than to the victimization of one gender. There are many lost souls who play a part in this book, both male and female, and all seem to have chosen to give power to their darker, weaker impulses.

Kirino’s novel succeeds completely in describing the oppression and hopelessness of the story’s characters, making the book a difficult but compelling read. Initially, the passive language of the book seems to be a byproduct of its translation. On further reading, though, it seems clear that Kirino purposely chose such cold, passive language to help create a more isolated and emotionally void world.

While highlighted with some very real and believable plot turns, the story also features some that fail the test. For instance, Kirino nails Satako’s psychopathic musings on his first murder. However, she paints him as a psychopath who willingly gives up seeking out new victims, content to ceaselessly relive the thrill and emotional high of his first murder instead. Psychopaths rarely quit seeking their homicidal highs in new victims and experiences unless they are incarcerated or otherwise incapacitated. A few other such unrealistic turns and character choices help bring the book to an end, one consistent with Kirino’s vision but which may leave some readers unsatisfied.

A good, if sometimes difficult, read.

3 ½ bones!!! ( )