Out

The first book by Natsuo Kirino was Grotesque, and that sentence can be read correctly with more than one meaning. However, I was sufficiently impressed by Kirino's writing that I wanted to try her more renowned book, Out. I'm glad I did.

It is clear that Kirino finds a lot to dislike about Japanese society - ubiquitous sexism, politeness-to-a-fault disingenuousness, frequently blatant hypocrisy, racism, and a pervasive drive to succeed. In Grotesque her observations are turned inwards, becoming unrelenting self-loathing. In Out they are manifested explicitly as a desire to destroy connections with the society.

The story involves four women who work part time night shift in a lunch-packing company. The story centers on Masako, a show more strong-willed, intelligent woman; her friends are Yoshie - a capable widow who cares for her daughter and mother-in-law - Kuniko - a young woman whose profligate spending has left her mired in unending debt - and Yayoi - a wife and mother whose husband is becoming abusive towards her.

Yayoi kills her husband one night and seeks help from Masako, and therein begins a sequence of events that drags the four women willingly towards disaster.

A writer with lesser skill would have taken on the sexist, racist, classist, elitist attitudes that seem to define Japanese society more directly - and to be sure, they are criticized by Kirino in direct passages; however, the perfection of her novel is that those aspects of Japanese society are integrated almost uncritically into the fabric of the story, becoming part of the background that drives the characters inexorably - and almost willfully - to their destruction.

The book is not as relentlessly depressing as Grotesque is, and is actually an excellent suspense story. Out works marvelously at several levels, the characters are fully developed, the narrative is clear, and the plot unfolds as it should - gradually, enticing the reader on. show less

When Yayoi Yamamoto kills her abusive husband, her coworkers somewhat grudgingly help her dispose of the body. But can they avoid the attentions of the police, loan sharks, yakuza, and somebody rather scarier than all the others?

It sounds like the plot of a black comedy, but the very graphic descriptions of rape, necrophilia, and dismemberment soon put paid to that idea. There were definitely times I had to put it aside and get some snacks or a drink before I could continue. But having said that, if you've got the stomach for it, it's a great, tense thriller which leaves you alternatively appalled by and rooting for the main character, Masako Katori.

From Amazon:

Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out. This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society.

My Thoughts:

This book is so much more than a psychological thriller or a formulaic crime novel. This show more is fiction that surpasses genre. Although plot driven, much of the story is dependent on character development and change. The characters are portrayed so vividly... even the minor ones... that the reader cannot help but form a strong attachment to them. It really does not matter if the connection is positive or not...you still looks forward to following the various personages forward to their individual destinies. Masako Katori...shrewd and extremely intelligent.... is the definite leader among the women and an absolutely fascinating figure. Although she has perfected a detached veneer with which she presents herself to the world...inside she is despondent and in turmoil. Increasingly alone and alienated from her husband and teenage son... she longs for "freedom.". Masako is looking for a way "out" of her claustrophobic life. This is Kirino's first book to appear in English... and it is my understanding that her other award-winner will be published in English very soon. I highly recommend this novel for readers who like to explore the dark side of a different culture. show less

There are many wonderful things to say about this book.

Many thoughts on its, perhaps, problematic aspects and the graphic depiction of rape.

Many of those have been said by other people, reviewers, interviewers, Kirino herself, analyzing and explaining the archetypes the characters represent, and whether or not, the ending is simply gratuitous or also serves as a metaphor.

None have talked about the subtle, yet extremely prevalent, constant fatphobia, on Kirino's part.

Kuniko, the fat character, is a somewhat lesser villain, and thus does despicable things and is hated by most, which makes sense.
Her body however, is described by everyone's POV as burdensome, ugly, huge, hideous, etc. By everyone, literally not one person in this book show more doesn't think her fatness is as ugly as her manipulation and extortion.

This ties into the fact that the character herself is an analogy for consumerism and excess and it's easy enough to fall into the trap of rationalizing this prejudiced writing as "well it's to drive the point further that this is a character that goes to extremes, does not have boundaries, is uncontrollable etc..."
Notice how this kind of reasoning resembles all the excuses people give when they want to feel righteous about fatshaming another person. This argument is constructed in the same prejudiced way we talk when we oppress fat people .
Consider that Kuniko is the only one of the four women who has a marginalized body, and the only of the characters that has her body be a metaphor for something else, something vile, bad, reprehensible. Something to be judged about. Something that defines her character and her worth as a person and as a woman.

Using fat bodies as a metaphor is fatphobic and prejudiced.
Using bodies as a metaphor in general is waaaaay too problematic.

Honestly this was the hardest part to read, her humiliation, the way her "lesson" at the end is written to make the reader feel like some "justice" is done. It all read disgusting to me, by far more than the ero-guro/rape scenes did.

And sure, if one wants to talk about the book there are, again, many points to be brought up about various issues, but everyone has already done that and I have read their opinions and thoughts about everything else BUT this fact. Because fat-shaming is so ingrained into everything we hardly take notice of it. Because we make excuses about metaphors and the author's intent, when the answer is very clear, and very simple. This is some fatphobic shit.

I wish I'd read someone else also mention this. show less

A gripping story set in Tokyo, about four women working the graveyard shift in a boxed lunch factory. Their personal lives aren't pretty, with the likes of an abusive gambling husband, a monster invalid mother-in-law, crippling financial troubles, etc Each of them are seemingly stuck in never-ending cycle of poverty, hardship, and deep discontent. Then one night after being punched in the gut by her husband who just told her that he gambled away their life savings, one of the women makes a split second decision that she's had enough and strangles her him. She asks her colleague at the factory to help her dispose of the body, and pretty soon all four of them are involved.

From there the story takes off into a wild spin of often gruesome show more events involving detectives, dismemberment, loan sharks, perverts, sadists, the yakuza, etc. The author provides a glimpse behind what drives women into committing terrific acts of violence, and how it gets justified afterwards. There's also a lot of insight into the way women relate to each other, and the kind of friendships that that we create.

Studies show that there's a difference between why men and women kill, and how they choose to do it. I can get quite hooked on true crime every now and then, delving into the childhoods, behaviors and minds of these seemingly ruthless killers, and the stories of women killers I find fascinating. This book, though a work of fiction, provided me with another glimpse into that world.

This book is the first of her novels to be translated into English, and I can't wait to get my hands on the second one, Grotesque. If anybody has read it, let me know what you think. I like the way this woman writes, her literary realism, the feminist commentary, her depiction of the roles women have in contemporary Japanese society, and how this influences their sexuality, relationships and socio-economic affairs. I'm interested to know if it's a theme that carries through in her other novels as well show less

Warning: This book includes on-page instances of rape, torture, murder, and corpse dismemberment. On the plus side, there is a cat, and it is neither hurt (at least not that I remember) nor killed. I spent the whole book worrying that something was going to happen to that cat.

Anyway, Out tells the story of four women who work the night shift at a boxed-lunch factory in Tokyo. Yayoi is the mother of two small children. Her husband goes out drinking and gambling every night and has started physically abusing her. Kuniko hides her lack of self-confidence under expensive makeup and clothes she can't afford. She's so buried in loans that she struggles just to pay the interest. Yoshie is a widow, mother, and caretaker for her elderly show more mother-in-law. She works at the factory seven nights a week and, even so, only barely makes enough to support herself, her mother-in-law, and her increasingly rebellious and distant teenage daughter. Masako is the most mysterious of them all. She used to have a job at a company somewhere, and she seems too cool and composed to be working the night shift at the factory.

While these four women aren't exactly friends, they make a good team at the factory. That's why, when Yayoi suddenly snaps and kills her husband, the first person she can think of to turn to is Masako. Masako agrees to take care of everything and enlists Yoshie's help. Due to a stroke of enormously bad luck, Kuniko also gets involved. With all these people in on the secret, will they really be able to avoid being found out by the police? Then there's the question they didn't consider, didn't even know they had to consider: will they be able to evade Satake, the man to whom Yayoi's husband owed money?

The back of this book calls this a “masterpiece of literary suspense and a pitch-black comedy of gender warfare.” And also “a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.” I can see where some of that came from, but overall I think it's misleading.

For one thing, these women were not friends. Not at all. The only person who believed that was Yayoi, who was a bit silly and prone to believing her own lies. Yoshie believed in Masako's strength and knew that the horrible things they did together created a kind of bond, but I don't think she was stupid enough to truly think they were friends. Masako was a strange mix of leader and loner, and Kuniko only looked out for herself.

I'm also not sure where the “pitch-black comedy of gender warfare” stuff came in. This book wasn't so much darkly comedic as it was just...dark. And I wouldn't have said it was about gender warfare. I mean, gender played a part in the story, but not in the way the back of the book led me to expect. Yoshie felt defeated when she realized that her teenage daughter could get a higher-paying job than her, simply because she was younger and cuter. Kuniko wanted to get a job as a hostess, but wasn't pretty enough to even get a second glance. Masako spent 22 years at her company, only to be driven out when she asked for higher pay after realizing that the men who'd started working there at the same time as her made far more than she did. The best (or only) job any of them could find was the night shift at the factory. The odd hours they worked created an even bigger rift between themselves and society and their families.

Disposing of Yayoi's husband's body gave them all the beginnings of a way out of their situations, but it also drove them even deeper into the gutter life had led them into. Although Yoshie and Kuniko's initial reactions to the idea of cutting up a corpse was horror, they were both soon seduced by the prospect of money. Masako was harder to figure out. Even now, I'm not sure that I understand her.

I'm the sort of reader who prefers stories with at least one likeable character I can root for. This book had maybe two people who weren't awful in some way, but no truly likeable characters. As for characters I could root for, Masako came the closest. I wouldn't have mourned if the cops had closed in on her, but when it came to the tense cat-and-mouse game in the last quarter of the book, I wanted her to succeed. I was more repulsed by Satake than I was by her.

The corpse dismemberment scenes were gross, but they didn't bother me anywhere near as much as the flashbacks to Satake's past and the possibility of what he might do later on in the book. When he was younger (maybe a teenager? I can't remember), he went after a woman with the intention of scaring her. Instead, he raped and tortured her, stabbed her, and then raped her some more as she bled out. The first flashback was very short and read, at first, like a regular sex scene until it became obvious that the “warm, sticky liquid” (37) was actually blood. The next couple flashbacks were even longer, although thankfully not quite as erotically written as the first one. I'd have preferred it if the longest one of the bunch had been cut, but unfortunately it turned out to be setup for a scene near the end of the book.

Here's where I get into spoiler spoiler territory, but I really feel like I should write about it. The last 15 pages of this book were brutal –more rape, more torture, and then more rape. What made it even worse was Kirino first wrote everything from Satake's POV and then wrote the exact same scenes from Masako's POV. All that awfulness, twice. I might have handled it better if Masako had been able to hold onto her rage, and if she had felt triumphant at the end. Instead, Kirino diluted all of that with Stockholm syndrome.

Despite several difficult to believe moments (for starters, what kind of security company gives out the home address of one of their employees to random callers?), this was mostly a very gripping story. Unfortunately, the ending just did not work for me. I doubt I'll seek out any of Kirino's other books.

Rating Note:

This is the kind of book that leaves me feeling torn. On the one hand, I wanted to give it fewer stars because the ending repulsed me so much, and because I was never able to understand what drove Masako. On the other hand, I felt like it deserved more stars because the characters and events grabbed and held my attention so well. In the end, I settled on 3 stars.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Was war das jetzt?
Mehr als 600 Seiten japanischer Thriller - aber irgendwie auch nicht.
Ein dickes Buch über vier Frauenschicksale die sich alle ein besseres Leben wünschen - doch das wäre zu wenig.
Eine unglaublich gelungene Mischung aus beidem, die einen zudem in die tiefsten Abgründe der menschlichen Seele blicken lässt - ja, das trifft es wohl besser.
Im Affekt bringt Yayoi ihren Mann um nachdem er ihr gestanden hat, dass er ihre gesamten Ersparnisse verspielte. Ihre drei Kolleginnen aus der Lunchpaket-Fabrik helfen ihr aus Mitgefühl, Solidarität, Geldgier (?) das Verbrechen zu vertuschen womit das Verhängnis seinen Lauf nimmt. Immer tiefer verstricken sie sich in Lügen und Täuschungen.
Dieses Buch ist stellenweise unerhört show more brutal, es stockt einem der Atem - jedoch nicht weil hier mit Lust entsetzliche, blutrünstige Dinge beschrieben werden. Es ist vielmehr die Nüchternheit mit der dies geschieht, die einen (mich) so fassungslos macht. Scheinbar völlig normale Frauen, die nur der Wunsch nach einem etwas besseren Leben verbindet, lassen alle Normen und Regeln hinter sich um so ihrem Traum etwas näher zu kommen. Doch ihre Schicksale sind so gut beschrieben, dass man diese Frauen zu verstehen und mit ihnen zu fühlen beginnt, sowohl im Guten wie im Schlechten.
Leicht zu lesen, aber nicht ganz so zu verdauen :-) show less