No 672 Out by Natsuo Kirino

Natsuo Kirino’s Out is a gritty grimy tale of what people are capable of when pushed to their limits. Or more importantly, it is about what women can do when their circumstances become too much to bear.
Masako, Yayoi, Yoshie and Kuniko work together on the night shift in a boxed-lunch factory. Each has her own problems, spirally debt and violent husbands, the pressure of being a carer and ungrateful offspring. Their roles as mother, daughter or wife are proving unfulfilling and the work they are doing is unsociable and back-breaking.
Something has to give.
And when it does, it unleashes a world that these four women could never have imagined.
One night, when Yayoi discovers that her husband, Kenji, has lost their entire savings at a nightclub where he is infatuated with one of the hostesses she is pushed to her limits and strangles him with her belt. Turning to her friends for help, she enlists them (with the promise of money) to get rid of his body but chopping it up and disposing of the body parts in the garbage in and around Tokyo while she pretends he has left her.
When pieces of Kenji are finally found and Satake, the night club owner who fought with Kenji is arrested and a life insurance policy is about to pay out, the four women think they are free but they are about to spiral into a world of violence, revenge, blackmail and backstabbing.
The story of Out is a pretty unrealistic one. Would these women really risk everything for a work colleague? Not only that, would an ordinary woman so easily agree to cut up a body in her own bathroom? One of the women, Yoshie, sees the job is stark terms, just taking what she does in normal life one big step further
I always seem to be doing the jobs nobody else is willing to do…
If you go with this rather unbelievable premise, Out is a great read. Mainly because the story is less a slice of realism and more a frame upon which to hang a political discussion about the lives of women in Japanese society today.
All the women are taken for granted, by their partners and their families. Masako, who worked in finance, was laid off for speaking her mind. Kuniko, who is addicted to buying clothes and cosmetics is constantly reminded that she is not pretty enough to find work in a bar. Even Satake’s beautiful girlfriend Anna knows she has about five years left as a hostess before she too is consigned to working in much less glamorous surroundings. These are women without hope. And more dangerously, they are women with nothing to lose.
As the situation closes in around them and the novel sets up a denouement that pitches Masako against Satake, the women come to realise what it is they truly want from life and in some ways come to understand who they truly are and their subsequent fates appear to mirror their personalities. As the English title suggests, their trues selves are brought out. Masako, the strongest of the four from the beginning, finds within herself a strength of will that would have been unimaginable before and realises that this is her one and only chance to get out.
As she listened to Yoshie’s litany of woes, she felt as though they were all stuck in a long tunnel with no sign of the exit in sight. She just wanted out, to be free of everything. None of it mattered any more. Anyone who couldn’t get out was doomed to a life of endless bitching – the life they were leading now
The book is unapologetically violent and disturbing, but in some ways it has to be. To fully comprehend the unhappiness of these women, we have to see what they are willing to do in an attempt to alleviate that unhappiness. Kirino does not judge these women (except perhaps the disloyal Kuniko), that is left to us and as such, Out is less of a crime novel and more of an examination of forgotten lives in a society that prizes youth and wealth above all else.

20 Books of Summer: 4/20
Number Read: 75
Number Remaining: 671
20 Books of Summer crime thriller japanese fiction murder natsuo kirino out tokyo
Cathy746books View All →
I am a 40 something book buying addict trying to reduce the backlog one book at a time!
Sounds like a seriously dark read! And that cover disturbs me – I keep thinking the fictitious person is going to poke their eye out!
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Me too Rachel! Actually, some of the stuff that happens in the book is probably worse!
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I know what you mean about why authors include graphic violence. Another example is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. They were extremely violent, but I think that part was necessary to understand the story and the characters.
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I agree. I don’t really mind violent books, but there were a few moments in this one where even I cringed a little!
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I always find Japanese fiction a strangely unsettling experience – brutality and breakdown always seem to feature. I can never decide whether it’s truly reflective of a society I don’t quite understand or if it’s a style of literary expression. Either way, I often find them compelling – I think I’ll look out for this author,,, but not till after the 20 books are done with!
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A agree, also the violence sometimes seems to be described in a very matter of fact way, which can make it even more unsettling.
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Look like a great book, thanks for the review!
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Thanks Stephen!
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Looks incredible. I’m fascinated by things that speak to the experience of women who suffer from fading youth or physical appearance in a society that prizes it; I particularly want more books with middle-aged female protagonists (and not in a soccer-mom sort of way), and it looks like this book deals with exactly that.
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I think you’d like this one then Elle. Have your read The Woman Upstairs by Clare Messud? It fits your bill perfectly!
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I have not, but it is very much on my radar. I like angry lady protagonists. (Notes On a Scandal was one of the very last books I read in 2013, but one of the very best.)
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It’s very Notes on a Scandal – you will enjoy it!
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I was thinking exactly that when you mentioned it – who would agree to help with such a messy business, unless you were already a part of it somehow? But, besides that, this sounds like a good, disturbing read!
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Kirino actually does a pretty good job of showing the quiet desperation of these women and how they are pushed to this extreme.
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I also like that it is about several different women – that’s always a pull for me.
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I really like the sound of this even though the premise is unrealistic – it wouldn’t be the first book I’ve read that you could accuse of that. It’s the Japanese element that really interests me. One for the list.
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Hope you enjoy Emma!
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This has been sitting on my nightstand for years. I’ve started it several times, setting it aside usually because it is so bleak. I went through a phase where I was interested in Japanese crime novels after reading The Devotion of Suspect X (which is very good).
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This is pretty bleak Priscilla, I think you have to be in the mood for it!
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Reblogged this on The Bogman's Cannon.
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Thank you!
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I read this book long ago and yet I remember it vividly (too much so perhaps?). Anyway your review really underlines the real issues of the book like women role in Japan. I just wish it wasn’t so depressing at times.
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Some of the descriptions of the violence are pretty graphic (and memorable!) – it was a pretty depressing read though.
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