Out by Natsuo Kirino Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Out
Book Review: A Good, but Gruesome Tale
Summary: 4 Stars
The book was a gift, selected for me because it was an award winning mystgery in Japan and a Staff Pick at our local bookstore. Intelligently written mysteries are a favorite genre of mine, and this book is well-written with good charachter delineations and a plot that quite believeably winds up to its conclusion.
It was the first Japanese mystery I have read, and it had the added bonus of giving the reader some good insights into what like is life for those living in, trapped in, the underbelly of Modern Japan.
My only hesitation in recommending the book is that it is quite gruesome. At one point, fairly early on, I put the book aside, nont sure if I wanted to go on reading in. But I found myself compelled to go back to it to find out what happened to the characters I had already cared about.
Book Review: A Perfect Square of Rice
Summary: 5 Stars
Honestly I have never been a big fan of mystery novels. Not that I have anything against them, but I just have never read them. The only one in recent memory that I have read was Miyuki Miyabe's _All She was Worth_ which was a very enjoyable read. Now I have read this book, and let me say I was pretty creeped out without the contents within. The book starts out simply enough describing in mundane detail the daily lives of four women, Masako, Yayoi, Yoshie, and Kuniko, who work at a industry that assembles ready to eat meals. Kuniko is an overweight flashy woman with expensive tastes who also suffers from very low self esteem. Yoshie, called the Skipper because of her hard work ethic, is a long suffering mother of two rebelious girls and the daughter in law of bed ridden woman. Her life is completely dedicated to taking care of others. Yayoi is the beautiful wife of Kenji Yamamoto a man who use to be very affectionate to her, but who has recently fallen for a bar hostess and become addicted to gambling. Then there is Masako a tall, thin 43 year old woman who hides her bitter past from her friends and endures a distant husband and a mute by choice son at home. She is, however, a lady of steel. Kirino has created an interesting ensemble of characters that the reader can easily identify with. Characters that the reader will both love and pity and readers that s/he will completely loathe. A wonderful book, but please have a strong stomach before you read it. Kirino is quite a graphic writer describing such things as dismemberment and rape. You have been warned...
Book Review: A Riveting Look at the Japanese Dark Side
Summary: 5 Stars
As Edgar Allen Poe and Rod Serling both demonstrated, the best horror stories take place in the most mundane settings, involving the most ordinary people. Natsuo Kirino's OUT brilliantly follows this dictum, presenting a chilling tale of murder and dismemberment under the most ordinary of circumstances. The result is a gripping page-turner that turns victimizers into victims and ultimately probes the darkest corners of the Japanese psyche.
OUT begins with four typical Japanese women who work the night shift together at a box lunch factory. Masako Katori is a middle-aged, former office worker locked into a loveless marriage to a self-isolating husband and an intentionally mute teenage son. Yoshie Azuma is a widow in her late fifties, burdened with the care of an incontinent mother-in-law and two self-centered daughters. Kuniko Jonouchi is an overweight and materialistic young woman whose live-in "husband" has just abandoned her and her small mountain of credit debt. Yayoi Yamamoto is a pretty young mother of two children and wife to a gambling, skirt-chasing husband who has blown their life savings at the baccarat tables of a club owned by Mitsuyoushi Satake, a small-time hood with a horrifying secret past.
It is Yayoi who triggers events by strangling her husband in a fit of rage. Realizing what she has done, she calls Masako for help, and they jointly decide to hide the murder and get rid of the body. Their solution eventually sucks Yoshie and Kuniko into their plot, and Satake is fingered by the police as the most likely killer of Yayoi's husband. Satake loses both of his clubs as a consequence and sets out on a course of revenge. The four women's lives head into a free falling death spiral as they are unwittingly drawn into one another's lives and into the yakuza underworld. Desperation leads them to more and more shocking actions, resulting in two of their deaths and a chilling battle of wits, culminating in a sado-masochistic climax.
Kirino's writing is serviceable for this type of book, not rich in imagery or description but well-paced, focusing on actions and character motivations. She maintains her characters' sense of desperation and builds her story to a suspenseful climax, leaving the reader guessing how her main characters will respond to events. Kirino is most successful in tracing Masako's discovery of hidden strengths as well as her descent into horrifying depravity. We identify with Masako, leaving us wondering just how dark might be the deepest corners of our own souls.
OUT struck me as a particularly Japanese novel, following that culture's peculiar fascination with ritualistic murder and masochistic infliction of pain evidenced by writers like Mishima, movies like IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, and even the recent spate of pop horror movies like THE RING. America's dark side tends toward mass murderers and serial killers, most of whom are regarded as social misfits or freaks (such as Jeffrey Dahmer, or Hannibal Lechter). The power of Kirino's OUT lies in the very ordinariness of its four female protagonists.
I bought OUT as an airplane read before an 18-hour flight; it proved to be an excellent choice for some badly needed escapism. I am hardly an expert on crime novels, but I recommend this book highly as a good read and a bleak look at the underside of modern Japanese life and culture.
Book Review: A Tokyo Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
You may want to avoid eating before or while reading this thriller. Aside from that caveat, the only other recommendation is to set aside two days because you will not be able to put "Out" down. It draws in the reader with its letter-perfect character descriptions and tightly-constructed plot. Kirino's novel was originally published in Japanese under the same title in 1997. It was a cause celebre selling 300,000 copies and won Japan's top mystery award in 1998. Prior to that, Kirino won the Naoki Prize with "Yawarakana Hoho" (Tender Cheeks).
This hard-boiled novel examines the interrelationships between four women factory workers, who are drawn into covering up the murder one of them commits. This leads to more intrigue and, ultimately, the central premise of the novel: what would you do in similar circumstances? Would you reject a friend's entreaty? If yes, why and how? If no, could you take part in the horror--and then go back to your previous life? The main character is the brilliant but ordinary-seeming Masako Katori, who works the night shift in a factory. When a co-worker murders her husband, Katori steps forward and enlists the help of two other women in covering up the crime. Katori lives with and takes care of her sexless and depressed husband and her sullen teenage son who no longer speaks to her.
To pigeonhole "Out" as a detective novel does no justice to it. For those who have lived in Japan for many years--or for those who only have the vaguest idea of Japan--this is stunning portrayal of the anomie of modern Tokyo. The portrayals of a Brazilian immigrant, a Yakuza nightclub owner, a Chinese hostess, the working class police detectives, and of course the women themselves are spot-on. Brilliant.
Book Review: A taste of Tokyo life.
Summary: 5 Stars
Completely gripping from cover to cover. Life in Tokyo seems very hum-drum with money worries, dysfunctional families, banal even, then the characters' worlds are turned upside down. OUT makes me want to visit Japan. Everbody has the same worries throughout the globe. I was there throughout. The conclusion to the book is as unexpected as it was welcome.