Out

ISBN-13: 9780099472285
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2004
520pp
Translated by Stephen Snyder


From the blurb:

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the draining graveyard shift at a boxed-lunch factory. Burdened with chores and heavy debts and isolated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives.

A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband then confesses her crime to Masako, the closest of her colleagues. For reasons of her own, Masako agrees to assist her friend and seeks the help of the other co-workers to dismember and dispose of the body. The body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions, but the women have far more dangerous enemies - a yakuza-connected loan shark who discovers their secret, and a ruthless nightclub owner the police are convinced is guilty of the murder. He has lost everything as a result of their crime and he is out for revenge.

What would one do if he or she is being pushed beyond the limits? For housewife Yayoi Yamamoto's case, she murdered her husband, Kenji when she found out he has been spending all their savings in gamblings and on a hostess whom he fancied at a club. Masako Katori agrees to help her, partly because she felt her situation is very much like Yayoi's - having worked so hard and no one seems to appreciate them.

Masako is like a leader amongst the four; she takes the whole situation in stride and has everything all planned. She is also the most gutsy amongst them; perhaps that is due to the result of her working in a male-dominated office and she does not show her defeat easily, even though she is being asked to go in the end.

On the other hand, Yoshie and Kuniko are desperate to make ends meet so they agree to be accomplices since each needs money and Masako told them they will get a share once things have been settled.

Club owner, Mitsuyoshi Satake had a dark past but his heart is into his club business until a murder case ruined everything for him. Kenji fancied one of his hostesses but Satake thinks he is trouble, and someone witnessed them having a fight so that led him being a suspect.

Loan shark Jumonji is after Kuniko because she has several loan repayments to be settled with him but she made a deal with him in order to cancel her loans.

Then, like a domino effect things began to get out of hand as the four women sank deeper into various horrific consequences and could not seem to get out. Natsuo Kirino is an outstanding author; she had all the plots skillfully laid out as she took her readers into the four women's dark world, sharing their frustrations and pressures being Japanese housewives with not much position in the male-dominated society.

Out is not an easy read. It is dark, but yet it also leads one to think of the harsh reality of life and that money is often the culprit under all circumstances. I also had a hard time digesting the fact that what look like simple-minded housewives could resort to such horrific unimaginable crime. But then again, I sympathise with them in a way, because if the society (or their husbands) have treated them better and with some respect, I guess things might have worked out differently for them. I look forward to reading her other releases, Grotesque and Real World, both of them I have in my to-be-read pile.

Other blog reviews:
Bell Literary Reflections
Bookgirl's Nightstand
Estella's Revenge (Reviewed by Carl V)
In Spring It is the Dawn
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
(Let me know if I have missed your review.)