| Out: A Novel | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 110 reviews)
Sales Rank: 30160
Category: Book
Author: Natsuo Kirino
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Label: Vintage
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 1400078377
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781400078370
ASIN: 1400078377
Publication Date: January 4, 2005
Release Date: January 4, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 105 more reviews...
 Powerful. Unforgettable. Uncomfortable. Dark. September 26, 2008
This is one you cannot forget.
Powerful in its characters and twisting story. It will stay with you long after you have read the last page and closed the book.
 Noir with an overlay of black comedy August 31, 2008
Just when you think it can't get any worse ... it does. This novel is a great example of noir literature. It has the usual noir elements of darkness, despair, hopelessness and betrayal. Layered on top of this noir novel is a very black comedy of gender warfare.
A young mother, living in the Tokyo suburbs and working the night shift at a boxed lunch factory, wants out of her miserable marriage to a philandering and abusive husband. Her solution? Strangle him. Unfortunately, this solution creates a new problem ... a dead body that needs to disappear. Fortunately, this young mother has empathetic lady friends who are equally desperate to get "out" of their own miserable circumstances and are therefore willing to help dispose of the body.
Unfortunately for these ladies, they find that the nightmare has just begun and this one act has pulled them into the "violent underbelly of Japanese society." In usual noir-ish fashion, all does not end well and no solutions are offered to resolve the hostilities between the sexes.
This is not my favorite type of reading, but I thought the story was well done and was an excellent example of noir and black comedy. The translation, by Stephen Snyder, seemed extraordinarily good to me; I never once thought about the fact that I was reading the book in translation.
Just like sashimi with wasabi - raw, pungent, and sharp July 20, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Out" is Japanese noir at its darkest best. The first of Natsuo Kirino's to be translated into English, it is gruesome, edgy, bizarre, and terrifying. It has also been mistakenly categorized as mystery simply because there is no mystery here at all. We know from the onset the who, what, why, where, when, and how of the crime. What we do not know is what will happen to the criminals.
Four women work the night shift assembly line at the Miyoshi Foods factory in suburban Tokyo prepping box lunches. Masako Katori is the smartest of the four, hardened by the injustices she suffered in a previous professional job, and by the callous indifference of her husband and troubled son. Yoshie Azuma is the most efficient at the line, earning her the nickname Skipper, but she's a widow burdened at home by an antagonistic, bed-ridden mother-in-law and a selfish daughter. Yayoi Yamamoto is the timid one, abused by her husband, Kenji, whose gambling and womanizing have drained their savings. Kuniko Jonouchi is young and foolish, drowning in a sea of debts to finance her shopping habits.
Unable to endure Kenji's abuse, Yayoi snaps one night and strangles him dead with her belt. Helpless and panicked, she enlists Masako's help, and with the understandably hesitant Yoshie and Kuniko, they dismember the late Kenji and dispose of the body in various places. (About halfway into the story, a detective theorizes that the reason dismembering is more often done by women is simply because they do not have the physical strength to carry the body in one piece. It makes perfect sense...well...in a morbid sort of way.) Yayoi collects on her husband's life insurance and pays the three for their trouble. Soon, Kenji's remains are discovered, and a club owner who fought with Kenji on his last night is fingered (sorry) as the killer. But the women's relief is premature--their lives are forever changed and threatened by someone who's figured it all out and now wants payback.
Ms. Kirino presents a gritty Tokyo here, not the cherry-blossomed, tranquil, Zen-like atmosphere postcards perpetuate. This is ugly Tokyo with its yakuza (mob), seedy Kabukicho (red-light district) `hostess' clubs, and killer loan sharks. (Those into photography may recall seeing works by Watanabe Katsumi who's known for his photographs of the gangsters, prostitutes, drag queens, and sundry of Kabukicho in the `60s and `70s. That's the atmosphere and mood here, only grittier, darker, and more menacing.) There are no likeable characters either, and money is a recurring theme. Wanting it, getting it, killing for it are always at the forefront. It's a gripping read and her characters may not be sympathetic but they're believable.
The "feminist" label that's been attached to this is a curious thing. True that Masako was treated very badly at a prior company for no other reason than wanting equal pay and opportunities. However, the fact that it portrays women who are treated as second-class citizens by a patriarchal society does not in and of itself make it a feminist novel, and insofar as they are capable of despicable acts as their male counterparts only proves that crime can be an attractive proposition for both genders. There is no underlying moral philosophy here that champions equal rights for its female characters, and I don't see it as the theme; championing their survival from a killer hell-bent on revenge, yes, but that's a totally different thing. It just isn't that kind of story. The four women are in no way bound by anything approximating sisterhood. They did what they did because each had a reason to--two of them for need of money, one for something that would give her life some meaning (as absurd as that sounds, considering the act), and another for no other reason than she reached the end of her tether with an abusive husband.
The author is frank, both with the violence and the ugliness of its world. Those of a more sensitive nature will find some portions unpalatable. Those who like their novels dark, such as myself, will find this very satisfactory. Why four stars? The ending became a mishmash of events, told twice by two characters with varying perspectives, and a bewildering final chapter. Nothing new is learned by the reader when the second perspective is given, therefore, why even do it? And what precipitated the main character's abrupt and bizarre metamorphosis in the last chapter? I can guess, I suppose, but I rather the author had told me. With a tighter ending, it would have been near perfect. So, terrific story, lots of tension and very dark themes, scary but believable characters, realistic portrayal of the working-class part of Tokyo, writing may have been somewhat pedestrian, solid plotting until an ending that left me scratching my head.
insightful gutsy noir July 16, 2008
This is one of better novels I've ever read, and not particularly a fan of the genre. There's the mystery and the mayhem, but I was driven to read because Kirino creates real female characters and you care a great deal about what happens to them. While you read because of the main characters, in the meantime the book provides rare, deep insight into the character of Japanese society through its 'outcast' elements. A much deeper and much more interesting Japan than the wornout 'kimono and sarariman' one of proper Japanophilia.
Move over Flannery O'Connor... June 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this novel, but it is very dark. It is not a book you should read if you're not in a good emotional place, because Kirino digs deeper into the more sinister aspects of human nature than most crime/thriller writers, and one of the central ideas in her novel is that any of us is capable of committing or abetting horrible crimes if we are pushed to the brink by the right combination of circumstances.
This is not a novel of cartoonish violence like that in so many other contemporary thrillers. Kirino's understanding of how ordinary people get caught up in desperate situations, and how one decisive act can create a litany of unforeseen and undesirable consequences, is reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor, Jim Thompson, James Ellroy and Andrew Vachss.
Despite the grim subject matter (a woman murders her husband and three of her female co-workers agree to cut up and dispose of his body), I couldn't put this novel down because of Kirino's incisive psychological profiles and spot-on internal monologue. Each character is distinct and three-dimensional, and Kirino does a great job of bringing together seemingly unrelated and dissimilar characters in a narrative that picks up momentum until the dramatic climax.
The first two-thirds of the novel is a combination of crime thriller, unconventional feminist treatise and deconstruction of how seemingly innocuous people metamorphose into efficient criminals when placed under financial, social and emotional duress. The novel gets sensational in the final third, and I was initially disappointed at how the story became too "over-the-top," but Kirino rescues the novel in the final twenty pages and I was left breathless.
The murder and the inevitable complications it creates are so real, it's jarring. If you like your crime novels profoundly dark, then you must read this one. It's on par with anything O'Connor, Thompson, Ellroy and Vachss have done.
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