Out

by Natsuo Kirino

With volcanic urgency, Kirino's story erupts onto the page with a searing heat, flowing like lava to a remarkable finish. Facing the daily burdens of slavish work conditions, stale marriages, and a society refusing to show them a proper respect, the women on the nightshift at a suburban Tokyo factory are all looking for one thing -- a way out. When pretty young Yayoi takes a beating from her deadbeat husband, her coworkers do little more than help their friend keep pace with the line. But a new kind of sisterhood emerges when Yayoi requires assistance in disposing of her dead husband's body.

Masako Katori emerges as a tenaciously determined leader in the dangerous cover-up, and with the others, provides readers with a disturbing vision of the lengths a human mind will travel in its quest for freedom. For Kirino's women aren't ruthless murderers; they're hardworking housewives with dignity, desperate for respect.

Discover rarely selects a mystery novel for our literary distinction, but unlike more formulaic crime novels, Kirino's work travels outside the boundaries of category fiction and gets under the skin. It's rare when a novel is so well rendered, so reaching in scope, and so thematically relevant that it surpasses its genre and demands a wider readership. Out does that and more.

(Fall 2003 Selection)

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Japan, Mystery, Horror, Japanese Literature, Crime

359 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 1997

About the author

NATSUO KIRINO (桐野夏生), born in 1951 in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) was an active and spirited child brought up between her two brothers, one being six years older and the other five years younger than her. Kirino's father, being an architect, took the family to many cities, and Kirino spent her youth in Sendai, Sapporo, and finally settled in Tokyo when she was fourteen, which is where she has been residing since. Kirino showed glimpses of her talent as a writer in her early stages—she was a child with great deal of curiosity, and also a child who could completely immerse herself in her own unique world of imagination.

After completing her law degree, Kirino worked in various fields before becoming a fictional writer; including scheduling and organizing films to be shown in a movie theater, and working as an editor and writer for a magazine publication. She got married to her present husband when she turned twenty-four, and began writing professionally, after giving birth to her daughter, at age thirty. However, it was not until Kirino was forty-one that she made her major debut. Since then, she has written thirteen full-length novels and three volumes of collective short stories, which are highly acclaimed for her intriguingly intelligent plot development and character portrayal, and her unique perspective of Japanese society after the collapse of the economic bubble.

Today, Kirino continues to enthusiastically write in a range of interesting genres. Her smash hit novel OUT (Kodansha, 1997) became the first work to be translated into English and other languages. OUT was also nominated for the 2004 MWA Edgar Allan Poe Award in the Best Novel Category, which made Kirino the first Japanese writer to be nominated for this major literary award. Her other works are now under way to be translated and published around the world.

Reviews

[Matteo Fumagalli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/GaOrW8Lp1D4

Quasi 700 pagine divorate in tre giorni.
Non riuscivo a staccarmi.
La notte pensavo "Non ho voglia di dormire, ho bisogno di continuare a leggere".
Non succede quasi mai, ma che bello quando succede!

Questo libro, straordinario, è un incantesimo nerissimo.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s start with a few descriptors from the blurbs on the cover: nervy, perverse, dark, gruesome, depressing, daring, disturbing, brutal, unsentimental, scathing, gutsy, hair-raising. You get the picture.

After all that build-up it seems like a come-down to say that this is basically a story about four thirtyish, lower-class or lower-middle class Japanese women who work night-shift filling box-lunches in a factory. With the increasingly common globalized life-style, their lives and families are a lot like those in the USA. The women have money problems, of course, and to varying degrees, unloving husbands who have already left, are abusive, or are unfaithful. One husband is burning the family savings on gambling and prostitutes. Another husband is distant, living in a separate room and hardly speaking to his wife; the high-school aged son is now following the same pattern and has not said a word to his mother for more than a year. Daughters are useless; one steals money and another daughter appears only occasionally to dump off a child with grandma, steal money and disappear again.

The plot begins when one of the women kills her husband. The other three women agree to help her dispose of his body. The plot builds from two directions: the police are suspicious and start nosing around, and the Japanese underworld, the mafia-like yakuzas, take an interest and offer the women, shall we say, additional business opportunities. In effect, we have a black comedy that focuses on the inequalities of women in male-dominated Japanese society, which looks a lot like 1950’s American society. (The book was originally published in Japan in 1997 and translated in 2003.) Women executives are paid less for more work; women are humiliated and driven out if they complain or object; men do what they want and women are just supposed to take it. One woman still takes care of her incapacitated mother-in-law, changing diapers and bathing her even though her husband, the invalid’s son, has abandoned her. Why? Because that is what the society expects her to do.

But women aren’t let off the hook by this female Japanese author. Much of the time their mutual “friendship” seems more like a reluctant foursome built around backbiting, jealously, blackmail and one-upmanship. In fact, most of the time they hardly seem to like each other, a situation that worsens as they get dragged in deeper by their misdeeds. In addition to the socio-economic class focus of the book, we learn a lot about Chinese prostitutes and ethnic Japanese-Brazilian laborers who are some of the very few immigrants groups that have been allowed into insular (pun intended) Japan, one of the most ethnically isolated societies in the world. This is quite a read filled with local color of 1990’s Japan if you don’t mind some graphic violence and sex.

[David Putnam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book surprised me. I was not expecting to like--love it so much. It reminded me of A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (wish he'd write more books). It shows how unintended consequences can quickly spin out of control. A woman is put in an untenable situation, someone dies and she makes the best of a bad situation. It's really quite creative. I highly recommend this book to those who like dark noir with strong female characters.
David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson series.

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Women have it tough, all over the world, but now I know they have it tough in Japan, too.

If this book is to be believed, Japanese women are surrounded by chauvinistic, sadistic a-holes, cruelly remote ghosts, or losers who spend all their money with a nasty smirk. Or they are jerks-in-the-making, sullen teenagers who can go a year without saying a single word to their mothers, conveying hate through their angry eyes. At best, they're cowardly, bumbling, social pariahs... or dead.

Also, these poor Japanese women are "done" by "middle age". Our protagonist, a strong, intelligent lady of 43, is repeatedly described as being too old for men to notice, for being spry for her age. One unhinged character keeps wondering how in the world he could be attracted to someone SO OLD. WTF, Japanese men? W the actual F? And WTF, Kirino-san?

I enjoyed the dark, bleak storyline which involves nightshifts at a creepy boxed lunch factory. The plot involves human dismemberment, lots of it. The last body-chop brought with it a particularly fun twist.

I also was intrigued by the sense that everyone in Japan is being observed, that this high density living elicits watchful eyes and a distinct lack of privacy that makes play-acting a constant necessity. Thanks to nosy neighbours and prying strangers, nothing remains secret for long. People speak in stilted, unnatural dialogue that is polite to the point of being funny (either that, or there was something lost in this translation).

Then, the ending happened, and I pretty much hated every second of it. I felt like the author was really getting her rocks off with this ridiculous and horrible rape-fetish ending. She had so much fun writing it the first time, she had to repeat the whole torture porn scene AGAIN, take two, from the other person's perspective. It made me so grumpy, I can't be bothered to figure out what she was trying to say about men and women. I don't think it can be anything important.

[daph pink ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

they say books teach you a lot many things, you never thought you should know.

This book taught me - how to cut a body in pieces and then dispose it off properly and earn money from it.

I read this scene twice because first time I forgot to take notes.

Speaking of the book, it is a good book if you leave out fillers and ending ( esp the ending).

I honestly don't have much to say about this one because after 300 pages I was bored and was literally skimming through the book.

---------

pre review :-

कमजोर दिल वाले दूर रहे

What the hell was that? Seriously

2 stars ⭐/ review to come.

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tbr review :-

The other day I searched "most disturbing books" deliberately and I found
this list . Out was the only asian book so I knew I had to read this.

[Preeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointing ending! At first, I was absolutely entralled by the characters and their various relationships. The first 3/4ths of the book are filled with so much texture - it felt like I was running my hands through a fabric store. Most intriguing are the female-female relationships ranging from trust to need to fear. How I hated Kuniko! How I rooted for Masako!

And then, this whole S&M dark and violent erotic stuff comes out, which threw the entire book in downward-spiral away from nuance and substance to blatant sex and desire. I thought Masako was stronger than the Stockholm syndrome! I forced myself to finish and can say that while I did enjoy reading about underground Tokyo - why would anyone waste their time reading about it when they can watch a movie that is effortless and as simple?

[Liong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept postponing reading this book because it is quite thick 😅, and I didn’t know much about the story.

As you know, I’ve started reading Keigo Higashino’s crime novels, and I thought I might want to try her books as well.

I noticed that many of my Goodreads friends have read it.

I really enjoy the way Kirino writes, it feels like watching a shocking movie unfold in real-time.

The story starts with the murder and then follows the accomplices as they try to get away with it.

A word of warning before diving into this thriller: it may leave you feeling tense, uneasy, empathetic, and frustrated. 😱

After I finished this book, I watched the movie 'Out 2002' 🎥 🎬

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's just something about Japan that produces the grittiest, darkest, scariest, most realistic horror, psychological thriller, and suspense. The seedy underbelly of Japanese society is perhaps so successfully portrayed because so little has been embellished. And with the dark, empty surburban streets, so much is possible, so much can go unnoticed. In Natsuo Kirino's wonderful crime novel, Out, a sharp social commentary on Japan's patriarchal society and the situation for women and foreigners is tangled up with loan sharks, gambling, the yakuza and murder.

Masako works in a bento (boxed-lunch) factory on the night shift with her workmates Yoshi, Kuniko and Yayoi. Together they make a team to get the best spots on the conveyor belt, and because they're housewives with responsibilities during the day, they're more or less each other's only friends. Each has problems: Masako and her husband barely interact anymore and her son hasn't spoken to her in a year; Yoshie is widowed and takes care of her daughter and her bed-ridden mother-in-law in a tiny house that's ready to be knocked down; Kuniko's husband has left her and taken all their money, and she's over her head in debt because she's constantly buying new clothes to impress people; and Yayoi's husband has spent all their savings on gambling and a beautiful Chinese hostess called Anna. Their lives are circumscribed and lonely, and there seems to be no way out for any of them.

Then one night Yayoi's husband Kenji comes home and in a fit of cold rage she strangles him. In desperation she calls cool, sharp Masako, who calmly handles the situation by enlisting Yoshi to help her cut up the body in her bathroom and then get rid of the bags of body parts in the rubbish collection sites around the area. Kuniko, always with an eye out for a way to make money, gets drawn into the mess as well - which turns out to be their downfall. Unreliable and delusional, Kuniko does a poor job of disposing of her bags and the body is soon discovered and identified.

Things seem to be working out though when the police arrest their main suspect, a casino owner and pimp with a scary past, Satake, who punched Kenji and threw him down the stairs after warning him to stay away from Anna, his number one girl. Satake, innocent of the murder, suspects Kenji's wife - and he isn't the only one who figures out what really happened. As things start to unravel, Masako becomes the focus, and the sense that someone is watching her, that a trap is tightening around her, threatens her calm composure and orderly existence.

This isn't a "whodunit" crime novel, nor a formulaic one. This is original literary crime that would not adapt well to any other setting but Japan - Tokyo in particular (where the novel is set). Having lived in the country for three years, I found myself living there again while reading this book: the descriptions, the characters, their reactions and motivations, it was all so very real, so believable. The weather for instance - hot and humid and wet in summer, the smell and the sweat, it all came back so clearly. The attitudes, too, and the urban landscape - rice fields in-between factories, run-down houses squished along allies, bicycles and umbrellas and the rubbish collection spots.

One of the wonderful things about this book is the way it is written. Despite one or two obvious metaphors, the prose has a tight, tense yet steady, patient rhythm, creating more suspense along the way by never hurrying. The chapters alternate in point-of-view narration between the main characters, with their personalities coming through strongly despite the fact that the tone doesn't change. I want to find an example, and really, I don't have to look far:

She could hear a horn tooting somewhere nearby, the sound tofu trucks use to advertise their wares, and, through the open windows around her, the sound of dishes rattling and televisions blaring. It was the hour when the women of the city bustled around their kitchens. Masako thought of her own neat, empty kitchen and her bathroom where the deed had been done. It occurred to her that lately she felt more at home in a dry, scoured bathroom than a busy, homey kitchen. (p.146)

He had been a model of self-control, had worked so hard to keep his dark side sealed away. But he knew that even a hint of what he'd done would terrify other people. Still, only he and the woman herself knew the truth about what had happened, and no one else could understand what he'd been up to. It had been Satake's misfortune to taste the forbidden fruit when he was twenty-six, and he'd been cut off from the normal world ever since. (p.179)

As far as the social commentary aspect goes, it's a biting, unglamorous look at Japanese society, and also a revealing study of the plight of the impoverished, exhausted women like Yoshi, the greedy, superficial consumers like Kuniko, the intelligent, hard-working but discriminated and underpaid "office girls" like Masako had been; and the victimised housewives like Yayoi. The lengths these women go to for some money, for escape, for freedom have devestating consequences for all of them.

The play between genders is also explored, or rather, held up for review - it may come across as old-hat, but don't forget this is Japan, which is still confined by many traditions that see women and foreigners subjugated and restricted to the role of second-class citizen. Despite the deeply flawed characters and the things they do, Masako emerges as a strong heroine, and even the male characters I felt some sympathy for. The blurb describes it as having a "pitch-black comedy of gender warfare", and that's definitely an intrinsic part of this novel. Sometimes, though, it was just too hard to find the irony amusing.

There's a lot more I could say about this book but really I just want to stress how much I loved it. I came across only one typo (an "is" instead of "it"), which is almost unheard of. And if you're put off by the Japanese names, here's a quick lesson: Japanese, when converted into Romaji (our alphabet), is very easy to pronounce. Each "letter" translates into five vowels, an "n" sound and consonant-vowel pairings. So "Masako" is pronounced "Ma-sa-ko". Easy. "Yayoi" is pronounced "Ya-yo-i" ("i" as in "easy", but a short sound). "Satake" is pronounced "Sa-ta-ke" ("ke" as in "kettle"). "Kazuo" is pronounce "Ka-zu-o" or "kaz-u-o". "Shinjuko" is pronounced "Shin-ju-ku". See: easy! There's a great rhythm to it, like those clapping games. Unless there's a double vowel, vowels and pairings are pronounced with short sounds, generally. There's no "r" or "v" in Japanese, so these letters are given an "l" and "b" pronounciation. "Tsu" is the most difficult sound for foreigners to make, and we don't have an equivalent.

While I'm at it, it may be helpful to get the money conversion: 1000 yen is roughly about $10, 10,000 yen is $100 and so on. Just imagine a decimile point, or remove a zero, something like that. So when Yayoi pays Yoshi and Kuniko 500,000 yen for their part in getting rid of her husband, that's about $5000, and when she talks about getting 50 million yen insurance money, she is getting about $500,000. (Hope my maths is holding up here!)

[Samadrita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The night air trembles with a malevolent intensity. Something hangs heavy in the humid breeze - the stomach-churning smell of deep fried tempura prawns sealed inside boxed lunches mingled with something putrid, perhaps the stench of rotting dismembered human limbs hidden away in trash cans. The insufferable July heat accelerates decomposition, causes beads of sweat to cling to Masako's neck persistently as she waits in the taut darkness of the deserted parking lot for 3 of her colleagues - women who are entangled in the knots of a terrible secret. Women who have been brought together to resist common enemies - the cruel realities of a hostile world which thwarts their attempts at self determination at every turn. The reality of the abusive, wayward husband. The reality of the back-breaking night shift at the boxed lunch factory that whittles away at their will to live. The reality of the chokehold of harsh domesticity that places exacting demands on them while sparing the men of the house.

Fear dwells in the furthest nooks and corners of Masako's subconscious - fear of the anonymous, faceless attacker who has been assaulting women in the quiet Tokyo suburb lately. Fear of not doing enough to hold together a slowly disintegrating family. Fear of venturing so close to the edge of madness that oblivion may seem a welcome prospect in place of retaining memories. Fear of breaking free.

And yet Masako musters up a stony indifference, makes unwavering courage and resourcefulness her weapons of choice. Even in the face of monstrous evil that spreads its tentacles from the yakuza-governed seedy underbelly of the night for the purpose of macabre revenge, she does not blink. Masako does not believe in surrender as a choice. She wants out and she will secure an escape route.

She stared at the stark white area on her finger in the November sunlight. There was something pathetic about this band of pale skin, the mark from a ring that hadn't been removed in eight years. It was the mark of loss. But it was also the mark of liberation, a sign that everything was finally over.

'Out' is genuinely unsettling in the sense it fleshes out a nightmarish scenario with nary an inhibition. It forces us out of our comfort zones repeatedly and without mercy. To legitimize the aforementioned claims let me mention it features scenes of graphic violence against women and a psychotic rapist-murderer. Not a cartoonish villain who cackles with maniacal laughter while sodomizing his victims and cutting them up into little pieces but a more or less rational individual whose human impulses have been distorted beyond recognition. All his convoluted thought processes are so lucidly explicated that one cannot help fathoming a perverse kind of logic in them. And this is the aspect that sent shivers down my spine - the fact that I came close to feeling empathy for a rapist like the woman who survived his attacks. 'Out' does not attempt to slay any proverbial demons but coaxes us to look them in the eye and recognize the possibility that all acts of patriarchal oppression are underpinned by some coherent rationale, no matter how one-sided and brutal.

While he was inside, he'd been haunted by the memory of torturing her to death - but what troubled him wasn't guilt so much as the desire to do it all over again. Ironically, though, when he finally got out, he was completely impotent. It wasn't until some years later that he realised the intensity of the moment when he'd killed her had somewhow shut him off from the more mundane experience.

To a great extent, misogyny constitutes the thematic backbone of this fast-paced novel, given that it lists the manifold ways in which a patriarchal social order limits a woman's access to personal liberties, righteously punishing her for any defiance. Aside from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, this is the only book (I've read) which masterfully avoids a ham-fisted treatment of a rape scene and stops short of reducing both victim and perpetrator to the status of dehumanized participants in a horrendous act.

All said and done, I have a feeling this review will either generate some interest in prospective readers or turn them off so completely that even the name Natsuo Kirino will only inspire revulsion. I certainly hope the former sentiment prevails with most.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 1 out of 5]

No, just, no.

I have no idea why others would hail this as a feminist thriller. A book isn't feminist just because it features plenty of rape and marital abuse and mistreatment of women. Especially not if all female characters display the worst case of internalized misogyny I have encountered since I stopped reading Murakami.

And if that weren't enough: São Paolo?? Not once, but about 20 times. Like, really? Neither the author, nor the publisher, nor the translator can be bothered to check the spelling of one of Brazil's biggest cities? Shame on you! Also, there is no such thing as a fejioda. (The dish is called feijoada).

[Dusk · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Out" is a compelling exploration of the dimly lit corners of Tokyo, where four women—Masako, Yoshie, Kuniko, and Yayoi—labor relentlessly in a bento factory, their souls worn thin by ungrateful families and ceaseless drudgery. But one fateful night, monotony shatters. Fueled by rage and desperation, Yayoi kills her abusive husband. Desperate and panicked, she turns to Masako, the most level-headed among them, who surprisingly agrees to help dispose of the body. The others follow, driven by the promise of a monetary reward. They dismember the body, scattering its remains across the city. Yet their amateur efforts lead to a chilling discovery—one that pits them against not only the police but also a more sinister force.

Natsuo Kirino fearlessly peered into Japan’s societal underbelly in 1997. She exposed gender inequality within patriarchal system, economic struggles by the poor, the struggles of mixed-race individuals trying to connect with their homeland, and the psychological abyss that reveals the darker facets of humanity—the hunger for survival, the desperation that claws at reason.

The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak, reflecting the oppressive nature of the characters’ lives. It weaves together their desperate fight for a better existence, their humanity fraying at the edges. There’s no room for sentimentality; the world chews them up and spits them out. The blade of reality cuts deep, revealing the raw essence of survival. There’s no redemption here, only the relentless pull toward damnation.

One aspect that impressed me the most is the detailed process of dismembering the body, considering that Kirino crafted this gruesome task meticulously in 1997. Her prose doesn't flinch; it dissects the scene with clinical precision. The metallic tang of blood, the slickness of skin, the precise “method”—it's all there.

“Out” diverges from typical crime thrillers, which often focus more on mind games, plot twists and detective investigations. For those who appreciate gritty realism, it’s an intense, disturbing, twisted delight. "Out" beckons, promising no solace, only the thrilling descent.

[Lea · Rating 1 out of 5]

A battered woman murders her husband. Three of her work friends help her dispose of the body, forming a sort of makeshift "girl"-gang of 30-to-60-year-olds. As they try to deal with the police, loansharks and other complications, they each discover a darker side to themselves than they knew before.



Honestly this could have been such a good book. It could have been a sort of "vengeance thriller" of women who have been humiliated and ignored all their lives just because they were women, taking out the men who did them wrong one by one. There's a market for, as the neckbeards say, "misandry".

It really goes off the rails, though. It's like along the way major plotpoints were dropped (who was the parking lot pervert? does the police close the Kenji murder case? etc) and the book just turns into rape-filled torture-porn. The guy who accidentally got blamed for Kenji's murder decides he's going to find out who actually killed the guy (interesting development) but then literally forgets all about it and decides he's going to stalk, torture, rape and kill one the women instead. What????? It's like the author was writing one book and then two-thirds of the way was like "ahhh fuck it. This is boring. I want to write about a serial killer instead" but didn't want to discard what she had written so she ended up with a Frankenstein of a story.

The stalkers, domestic abusers, rapists, killers, etc, all get justifications from the women themselves and from the author's narration. They get forgiveness, they get acceptance. It's disgusting. Meanwhile the self-defense killing of Kenji gets a lot of condemnation from all sides. There is also a LOT of rape-as-sexual-fantasy here. Two of the four protagonists have rape fantasies, one is even shown to enjoy her own rape.



There are lots of things wrong with this book. What about the portrayal of the Brazilian character, Kazuo?



Dekasseguis are Brazilians who are descendants from Japanese immigrants and who went to work in Japan after the "Lost Decade" of the 80s. It is known that dekasseguis face a lot of prejudice and discrimination in Japan, so the fact that the characters would treat the Brazilian workers at their factory as inferior doesn't feel unrealistic. It is a problem, however, when the author's writing reflects this prejudice.

When there is rumour of a sex offender attacking women on the way to work, the characters immediately are like "must be a Brazilian". Ok. But then later, a Brazilian man, a dekassegui of mixed race, Kazuo, does attack Masako, one of the protagonists. So when a wave of sex crimes start, you blame the latinos, and it turns out the characters weren't being prejudiced, they were right, the pervert is the latino, and one of black ancestry at that. Do you see anything wrong with that??

(It turns out that he was a pervert but not the pervert. That storyline was completely dropped, we end up having no clue who he was or where he went, so in the end Kazuo ends up being the one parking lot pervert anyway.)

The fact is that the author chose to make the Brazilian character an attempted rapist, described him as having "darkish skin, caved-in face and protuding forehead" and "thick legs" (does that description remind you of anything??) and had his room smell of a "foreign spice that [Masako] couldn't identify" is extremely disturbing.

For the record, excepting in the state of Bahia (where Kazuo isn't from), Brazilian food isn't even spicy. Is garlic considered an exotic spice now??? Onions?? Salt?? For fuck's sake. But we're latinos, right. So we must smell of spices.



Holy shit, and what about the extremely lazy way the Portuguese language was handled? Now, I don't know if the author is to blame for this, but the translator definitely is, and CERTAINLY the asshole who "edited" this.

The capital of the state of São Paulo is São Paulo. NOT "Sao Paolo". That's not even real language. It's like "Nee Yorck". Don't even get me started on "fejioda". It's FEIJOADA. I don't even know what the fuck "shoro" was meant to be. Churrasco? Churros? Chouriço? I mean fuck. You couldn't open a map to see how to spell São Paulo? Couldn't google some Brazilian dishes??? "Oh what's that thing with beans they eat? Fiajada? Fijida? Oh I know. Fejioda. Nailed it". WHO PROOF READ THIS????

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out is so gritty and grotesque, so violent, that I was revolted many times, but there is such truth amidst grim reality here, especially in how women are treated in society. I noticed that one of the other reviewers wrote about how this reminded him of the 1950s in the US, but wage suppression and inequality is still going in good old 2018 in the US.
Women in Japan, where the book is set, are supposed to do all the housework, their outside job, and take care of all the members of the household, oh wait, that's just like the US. Sorry about the rant. This story's 4 main female characters are firmly fleshed out, I felt like I knew them. Kirino does a fine job of characterization, dialogue, and scene setting. This is the underbelly of Japan in the 1990s, but like I said it could be any country. We've all got the maniacal, misogynistic bosses, distant husbands and children, obnoxious in-laws, psychopathic rapists and various other creeps who make up this motley crew. I felt sorry for the women, especially Yoshie who had a disabled mother-in-law, 2 ungrateful daughters, a dead husband, no money, a crappy job and a teeny tiny house to take care of them in.
This book is only for the stout-hearted as there are descriptions of 2 beyond brutal rapes and dismemberment of corpses. It keeps you hopping and I never ever guessed how it would end and like other readers I didn't care for the ending and disagree with it wholeheartedly

[Repellent Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Espectacular, simplemente espectacular! Tercer libro que leo de la autora y tercera joya. Aunque este, es mi favorito.

Este inquietante thriller se va a centrar en la vida de cuatro compañeras de trabajo. Este trabajo no es otro que el turno de noche en una fábrica de comida envasada. En primer lugar, nos encontramos con Masako, gran protagonista de la novela, mujer fuerte, atrapada en un matrimonio aburrido, donde cada uno vive por su cuenta, y con un hijo adolescente, que la ignora y se niega a hablar. En segundo lugar, nos encontrarmos con Yoshie, viuda a cargo de una hija y su suegra, ambas dos tremendamente egoístas con ella. En siguiente lugar, nos encontramos con Kuniko, la cual vive con su novio, aunque no están en su mejor momento. Vive ahogada en deudas a causa de la compras compulsivas que hace, con el único objetivo de aparentar otro nivel social. Por último, tenemos a Yayoi, joven mujer con dos hijos pequeños, casada con un hombres que la maltrata.

Cuando un día Yayoi se presente en la fábrica con un "gran problema" entre manos, las otras tres no dudaran en ayudarla, aunque no todas lo harán desinterasadamente . Las cuatro comparten algo:una vida anodina e injusta de la que quieren escapar.

La creación de personajes de Kirino es simplemente espectacular. En las dos anteriores novelas que leí de ella, sus personajes ya poseían esa fuerza, sobre todo los femeninos, pero es que las cuatro protagonitas de esta novela son increíblemente reales. Están creadas con una maestría que asusta. Y creo, que es en gran parte el origen del siguiente punto fuerte de la novela: la adicción que crea. Se lee de un tirón, no puedes soltarla ni un momento. Es uno de los thrillers más adictivos que he leído jamás.

En muchos casos, cuando uno tiene entre manos una novela de suspense, ve recursos trillados o repeticiones usadas con demasiada frecuencia. Y no hay peor cosa en un thriller, que saber por donde va en cada momento, y de donde van a venir los giros. Este libro, no tiene nada que ver con esa sensación. Un libro que crea adicción por la agilidad de la historia, pero que tiene todos los elementos de una buena novela, personajes increíbles, tramas bien elaboradas y giros constantes, pero que encajan. Nada suena sacado de la manga.

Como digo, los personajes son espectaculares, pero sobre todo Masako. Es de esos personajes femeninos tremendamente poderosos que se van a quedar conmigo para siempre.

Creo que lo más interesante de Natsuo Kirino es que, si bien, sus libros tienen diferentes temáticas, algunas con más suspense y otras con menos, siempre tienen un elemento común (o al menos en las novelas que yo he leído), el papel de mujer en la sociedad nipona con respecto al hombre. Hace un crítica de fondo importantísima, sobre como la mujer siempre es tratada en inferioridad con respecto al hombre, siempre se le exige más cosas con respecto a su conducta social o en el hogar. También hace un crítica bastante imporante al mundo laboral japonés con respecto a la contratación femenina y al trato que reciben estas en según que tipo de empresas.

En fin, que es un libro incríble que jamás me cansaré de recomendar. Ahora a ver si las editoriales se ponen las pilas y alguna compra los derechos de esta maravillosa autora, que tiene casi una treintena de libros publicados en Japón y en España solo tiene TRES, y ya no me queda nada por leer y quiero más =(.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know how sometimes you answer a phone call, and suddenly . . . your life is changed forever.

"What's up? Are you taking the night off?"
"No, I just don't know what to do."
"About what?" She sounded genuinely concerned. "Has something happened?"
"It has." She might as well get it over with. "I've killed him."

Three Tokyo factory workers get sucked into the proverbial web of lies and deceit when they help a fellow employee dispose of the body of her murdered husband. The author goes into a disturbing amount of detail here. One wonders how she knows so much about chopping up a body. Then again, like her characters, women who are used to butchering all manner of critters - meat is meat. One of the ladies even exclaims, "exactly like a broiler."

There is a certain black humor at play here, which is good as the Kirino takes us to some dark, dark places. As expected, the story becomes much more convoluted, involving the police, loan sharks, AND yakuza. The characters are complex, and vividly drawn, making the tale even more compelling. Everything is at stake for these women, so it's almost certain that jealousy, greed, and human nature will expose their misdeeds.

"She seems to think we're guiltier than she is -- even though she's the one who killed her husband."

If you've got a ballsy bookclub that doesn't mind some gruesome violence, this book would be great fodder for one helluva discussion.

[Yulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A literary page-turner as timely as when it first came out, this biting critique of Japan's social and economic underclass begins when three female co-workers are forced to confront the act of a friend against her abusive husband, but evolves into a blistering exposé on those whose stories are never told: the unseen night-shift factory workers who make Japan's endless supply of box lunches; women who are swamped in credit-card debt but cannot live off their looks, youth, or father's paychecks as "parasite singles"; aging parents who, instead of being looked after by their children, are left to support their grandchildren and still look after their in-laws long after their spouses are gone; and alienated Brazilian immigrants who never attain the rights and respect of citizens. Kirino presents nuanced characters forced to make difficult choices but she does so with immense empathy and humanity, making us see there are no clear labels to put on her characters, like good, evil, victim, or criminal.

This work is a gem. It amazes me I had it in my bookcase for a full year before realizing what it offered (though Frank had seen its potential immediately). It never even pestered me for attention. It just waited its turn politely. What a well-behaved thriller. You'd almost think it was innocent.

[Apoorva · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Out’ revolves around four ordinary women working the night shift at a boxed lunch factory whose life changes drastically after a violent incident. One of the women, Yayoi is sick of her useless husband and impulsively strangles him to death. Not wanting the incident to come to light, she seeks help from her friend Masako to get rid of the body. However, it ends up with the four women being part of the cover-up and the repercussions they face due to their entanglement in the deadly world of crime.

After Keigo Higashino’s books, this was my second thriller by a Japanese author and I’m amazed to see how much variety there is in the plot of J- crime books. They’ve got distinctive and compelling story-line that just draws you in. That being said, ‘Out’ is a dark, gruesome, disturbing psychological thriller with the themes of violence, sex. It was creepy and eerie and I found myself unable to stop reading. I was drawn to the despairing world and I found myself sympathizing with the characters.

The four main characters Masako, Yoshie, Kuniko, Yoyoi are unable to escape the drudgery of their work and life. All of them, in one way or another, are caught up in a miserable and hopeless existence of working at a backbreaking and unfulfilling job, with fallen apart relationships, abusive or unresponsive or dead husbands, unable to earn enough to get buy or taking more loans than is possible to repay etc. All of them are dissatisfied with their lives but are unable to escape it.

“You know,” she murmured, “we’re all heading straight to hell.”
“Yes,” said Masako, giving her a bleak look.”It’s like riding downhill with no brakes.”
“You mean, there’s no way to stop?”
“No, you stop all right – when you crash.”

The murder proves to be a major factor in disrupting their lives and something that changes the dynamics of their ‘friendship’. We get to see how their world is turned upside down when the deep-seated emotions inside them come to surface. Their desperation leads to the women throwing away their moral scruples in the world where they’ve no power and control over their mundane lives. The characters felt real and I could feel their pain and understand the reason behind their actions.

Apart from the four characters, they were some other interesting characters. There’s Kazuo, a Japanese-Brazilian working at the factory seeking a better life; Satsuke, a night club owner battling his own demons; Jumonji, a loan shark wanting to make money and other Yakuza members. The book is a page-turner and captures the bleak atmosphere of the criminal life, the sleazy night clubs, and the tough night shifts. We get a closer view of the Japanese society and their worldview like the conservative opinions regarding women and not readily accepting of foreigners.

The story never gets predictable and keeps you guessing until the end. I also like how it’s written from different perspectives, it gives a little insight into their mind and past experience. Apart from that, if you’re planning to read this book then you should know it’s definitely not for everyone as there are graphic violence scenes at places. Otherwise, it’s a well-written thriller surrounding crime but focused mostly on ramifications of it on the people involved in the crime.

I definitely recommend it.

Read On Blog

[Henk · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slow moving tale of misogyny and loneliness, that in the end disappointed me
I read this novel 13 years ago and now dropped it two stars down due to the uneven, rather repulsive ending and the slow moving pace of this "thriller". The story doesn't warrant 500 pages.

“You know," she murmured, "we're all heading straight to hell."
"Yes," said Masako, giving her a bleak look. "It's like riding downhill with no brakes."
"You mean, there's no way to stop?"
"No, you stop all right - when you crash.”

Masako (badass main character), Yoshi (older widow who takes care of her mother in law), Yayoi (pretty but been abused by her husband) and Kuniko (younger woman deep in debt) work in a lunch box packaging facility. They do the nightshift to earn some more, because part time jobs don't really earn all that much otherwise.
All people around the four main characters are damn right awful, including their family members.
The tale of poverty and loan sharks is a bleak one, especially combined with the seemingly universal misogyny, occurrences of domestic violence and even attempted rape.
Also the women, despite their heavy night shifts, still are universally expected to take care of domestic life. They are essentially all taken for granted by others, or try feebly to exert some power over others in response to how their environment treats them.

This is the background for Yayoi killing her husband, and this common thread of misery leads the others to help her in disposing the body. Naturally this has all kinds of ramifications, not least a sadistic gambler boss coming after the four women.

Around page 300 one of the character is musing, when inquired if she felt something changed inside her due to the help she gave with the dissecting of Kenji, that no, nothing changed, because she always seems to be expected to be responsible for all shitty jobs anyway.
You feel sorry for them (except Kuniko) and can understand how the desperate lack of money and agency leads them to their actions. That is what Natsuo Kirino does expertly, with some perspective on how immigrants are treated in homogenous Japan as and added social commentary that really still feels timeless and relevant today.

The language in Out feels effective at best, not really polished, but clearly communicates the dreary circumstances the characters find themselve in.
A device that comes back is that literally everyone constantly seems busy with smoking, constantly and everywhere, it’s nowhere functional to the plot and started to feel as a filler.
The entire book feels very slow for a thriller in my opinion.
The ending, with a final explosion of violence (a twice depicted rape amongst other things) and a kind of weird Stockholm syndrome, really grated me.

[Kansas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela que me ha hecho volver a disfrutarl de la novela negra ya que hacia tiempo que dejó de interesarme porque la mayoría de las novelas negras estan escritas en base a una plantilla, repetitivas y con personajes planos y sin matices.

Sin embargo Out es una brisa fresca que incluso me ha conmovido en algunos pasajes. Crónica social de un Japón donde la clase trabajadora lo tiene negro, donde la mujer se tiene que abrir camino a base de codazos y dónde la violencia es descarnada, fria y casi rutinaria, es también una novela con un nivel de lirismo apabullantes en personajes como los de Kazuo, Satake o Masako. Increible por otra parte la forma en que esta autora nos disecciona a sus personajes , todo esto con un estilo directo, a veces seco y otras imbuyendo el texto de una profunda melancolia. En definitiva, una novela magnífica.

[Raul · Rating 3 out of 5]

About the first 60% of this book was the most incredible crime story I have ever read. Brilliant characterization where the characters leap and skip and kill off the pages.

Masako, Kuniko, Yoshie and Yayoi form a relationship working part-time at night in a food factory. All these women have troubles in their personal lives, and most of them because they're women in a violent and misogynistic society. Violence and abuse against women, mistreatment and inequality in the workplace, objectification and a very strange obsession for youth that verges (and is very blatant at points) on the pedophilic and where women are deemed unattractive and disposable past the age of thirty and of course treated even worse when deemed unattractive, and the strain of doing all the labour and care in domestic settings. Pressure weighs on these women; something happens and something snaps and a murder is committed and covered up, and someone becomes falsely accused and seeks revenge. I won't divulge more on the plot because a good part of this story moves along with what is revealed. This was really good storytelling, that is, until it wasn't.

The truth is there was so much going on at the same time, and I expected the story to give in and fold into itself the way collapsed stars do too. When all the material has been used up and it all just folds and it is done. Which is what happened somewhere past the halfway mark, and credit to the writer they kept it going longer than I thought it would. Too many coincidences that couldn't be ignored even though they made for exciting parts, too many holes that couldn't be filled, and things just got progressively worse the more the story advanced, culminating in a bathetic (and personally, unconvincing) ending.

Yet I still think this is a good book in the end, and that it does a great job exploring the many subjects it does: misogyny, xenophobia, the predatory financial systems that are meant to leach off all they can on individuals, violence and what it does to the person it is inflicted on and the person that does the inflicting, as well as that function of literature which is to touch and prick on what is taboo. Despite the disappointment of how certain parts and characters are handled (the last third of this book really didn't read like it was written by the person who had done the previous portion), and the ending which was meant to be shocking and a way to keep up with all the unexpected scandalous points happening throughout the book and provide a climax but instead ended up feeling trite and insipid, this was good. But just like a collapsed star that releases fragments of itself into space and is reduced to something that doesn't resemble its more powerful and luminescent former form, I ended up longing and mourning for the earlier brilliant part of this book.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C04DJxtL5...

An exhilarating web of greed, lies, and violence that poses the question: how far would you go for freedom? What happens when it all comes crashing down? Suspenseful, with all the biting realism of sexism, racism, and acting on our darkest impulses. A great thriller filled with interesting cultural and monetary insights, mixed with the twists and turns of a cat and mouse game gone wrong. Out is a psychological slow burn with an explosive conclusion, both bleak and strangely hopeful, a satire of the femme fatale ideal, and a glance into the violence that stems from hopelessness and greed, be it material or emotional.

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘You know,’ she murmured, ‘we’re all heading straight to hell.’
‘Yes,’ said Masako, giving her a bleak look. ‘It’s like riding downhill with no brakes.’
‘You mean, there’s no way to stop?’
‘No, you stop all right – when you crash.’

Four women working on the graveyard shift in a food packaging factory in a decrepit suburb of the metropolis. Four tales of despair and loneliness in a world that seems determined to crush the last shreds of their spirit. It’s only a matter of time before one of them snaps.

>>><<<>>><<<

I would be lying if I said I didn’t struggle with this novel. I was equally repulsed by the graphic, almost casual depiction of cruelty, selfishness and strife and fascinated by the slow-motion unfolding of the promised trainwreck in the lives of the protagonists. Kirino is an extraordinary talented storyteller, but the stories she has chosen to tell are so bleak, so depressing that I found it hard to push myself to read on, especially while being isolated in my home in the middle of a global pandemic: as if I needed no more proof of our capacity for cruelty and indifference to the suffering of our fellow men or, in this particular case, of the raw deal women still have to cope with in this male dominated modern world.

This is a crime story, as a case of domestic violence devolves into murder, followed inexorably by complications as Yayoi, Yoshie, Kuniko and Masako are brought together by the need to hide the body. The realistic setting, the sense of impending, unavoidable doom makes it easy to fit the story within the ‘noir’ genre of crime fiction. But for me this is too simplistic a view for a complex novel which transcends such limitations. While some people have focused on the graphic details of murder and violence to argue in favor of a horror shelf, I would rather fancy an ‘existentialist’ label or even a ‘dystopian’ society, if we accept the fact that for many of us such a dystopian future has already arrived, and we are living in it right now.

She pulled up her T-shirt and found a blue-black bruise just below her chest. The sight of it seemed like the final sign that she and Kenji were finished. She let out a long sigh. As she did so, the doors to the bedroom slid open and Takashi, the older boy, looked out at her with fear in his eyes.
‘Mama, what’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, honey,’ she managed to get out. ‘Mama fell down, but she’s fine now. Go back to sleep.’

Yayoi, the prettiest of the thirty-something night shift workers, has a decent house, two small children and a husband working in a good job. Yet she needs to work in the factory since Kenji has started to spend all their money on gambling and easy women, coming home drunk and angry enough to kick his wife around for complaining.

She worked as hard as anyone at the factory, and when she came home, she felt like a worn-out rag. What she wouldn’t give to lie down and sleep, even for just an hour. Massaging her own stiff, fleshy shoulders, she looked around at the dark, shabby house.

Yoshie, the eldest and most serious of the group, called Skipper on the food line for her determination and leadership, is a single mother with a girl in highschool and a mother-in-law paralysed in bed to take care of.

She wished suddenly that she were a different woman, living a different life, in a different place, with a different man. ‘Different’, of course, meant several rungs up the ladder. These rungs on the ladder were everything to Kuniko, and only occasionally did she wonder if there was something wrong with her incessant daydreams about this ‘different’ life.

Kuniko, the fashionable one, is a delusional middle aged woman living above her means, deep in depth to loan sharks and in denial about her own abilities.

When stones lying warm in the sun were turned over, they exposed the cold, damp earth underneath; and that was where Masako had burrowed deep. There was no trace of warmth in this dark earth, but for a bug curled up tight in it, it was a peaceful and familiar world.

Finally, Masako is the quiet, introverted one who comes forward when the hard choices have to be made and strength of character is the only thing that can save the four women from prison or from something even worse. That is, if the other women are prepared to follow Masako down the dark road they have been forced to take.

With the focus on the struggle of women and with most of the men presented in the book coming across as either predators or useless, the novel could be also classed as feminist literature, but I find this classification also unsatisfactory. While Kirino pulls no punches in her descriptions of broken marriages, failures in communication and pervasive alienation, my feeling is that the author doesn’t have a hidden militant agenda: she simply describes the realities of a broken system and she doesn’t spare her feminine actors the same harsh critical light she shines on the men in the novel:

One after the other, vain Kuniko ( She had always found the thought of anyone else’s happiness almost unbearable, and she was easily convinced that she was getting a raw deal. ), pretty empty-headed Yayoi and even the reliable Yoshie will crumble under the pressure, leaving Masako to confront the final battle on her own. Fear, greed, envy, exhaustion take a heavy toll on the casual friendship the four women have developed in the factory. When you throw murder and a lot of money into the mix, the results are rather predictable, which brings me back to my earlier observation about human nature: Kirino is merciless on the reader’s peace of mind and she spares us nothing of the dark side that lurks within most of us, waiting just for the right amount of pressure to makes us break.

Dissolved in a whirlpool, drained, rinsed and spun dry – it was precisely what they’d done to her. A pointless spin cycle, she thought, laughing out loud.

Since I have no intention of discussing the actual plot of the novel, I would like to give a few examples of why I hold Kirino in such high regard as a writer, despite my reservations about the bleakness of the setting. This is only my first book from the author, but I was impressed by how she can transition from gory to analytical then to lyrical from one page to the next. Her prose has both clarity and emotional intensity, delving deep into the psychology of her characters. She handles a complex plot and multiple voices almost effortlessly, both male and female, with scalpel sharp observations and minute details of actions, gestures, words that unveil hidden motives. Her descriptions of the streets and houses are as powerful as her character portraits and, often, one informs the other in a fluid exchange:

Engulfed in the hot stench of the city, he found that the boundary between his inner and outer selves seemed to dissolve. The fetid air seeped in through his pores and soiled what was inside, while his simmering emotions leaked out of his body into the streets.

If there is a common thread between the multiple actors in the novel, it must be something to do with alienation : from family, from nature, from society.

Though the faces and voices resembled her own, she was alone in a world where no one knew her. When she looked out the window again, the sun had set and she found herself staring at her own rflection in the dark glass: she saw a forlorn young woman in a dowdy coat looking back at her, and the sight filled her with a sense of utter isolation. [Anna]

Up until the very last page of the novel (possibly even after the last line) we will not know if any of the women will be able to escape their fate. Even Masako, the strongest of the group, is on the brink of succumbing to the absolute weariness of a futile struggle.

Still, she had no intention of apologising to anyone, no regrets about the way she’d handled things. The only thing that concerned her now was that someone was blocking her exit, and how she was going to get out. Even if she told the others what she was planning, she knew none of them would come with her; and she wasn’t looking for company anyway.

Which brings me back to the title of the novel and to a classic song from The Animals:

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'
We gotta get out of this place!
If it's the last thing we ever do…

***** stars

[Woman Reading (is away exploring) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ☆

In 1998 Out had won awards in Japan in both the Best Novel and Best Mystery Novel categories. After it had been translated into English, it was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2004. I can see why Out had garnered acclaim as it was nothing like what I had ever read from a writer in the English-speaking world. Perhaps it reflected some kind of "Japanese sensibility;" if so, then I'm unable to identify what that may be.

“You know," she murmured, "we're all heading straight to hell."
"Yes," said Masako, giving her a bleak look. "It's like riding downhill with no brakes."
"You mean, there's no way to stop?"
"No, you stop all right - when you crash.”

Out reflected its time as it was published in 1997 during Japan's "Lost Decade," a period of stagnation and recession. The plotline had a slow start as Natsuo Kirino established her ensemble cast of protagonists. Four women ranging in age from early thirties to late fifties are forced by circumstances to work the night shift at a boxed-lunch factory. There is no career advancement potential only assembly line drudgery. The night shift pays a slight premium compared with daytime hours but the wages only amount to about $12,000 annually. Money woes are common.

Yayoi Yamamoto chooses the night shift because it's the best childcare arrangement with her husband for their two young sons.

Kuniko Junouchi is racking up debt as her insecurities fuel her shopping sprees.

Widow Yoshie Azuma is informally regarded as a leader on the factory floor but she is being squeezed dry by the demands of the "sandwich generation." Yoshie is caring for her infirm mother-in-law while still raising teenaged daughters.

Masako Katori is a bit of a puzzle to her workmates as they all believe that she could easily find employment with greater prestige.

Then one humid summer night, Yayoi reacts to the abuse from her husband Kenji.

“You may think I’m crazy, but I don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong. He deserved to die, so I’ve decided to pretend that he just went off somewhere instead of coming home tonight.”

In the aftermath, Yayoi turns to the unflappable Masako for assistance. Masako's innate leadership ability rises to the fore as she becomes an accomplice and then successfully maneuvers the other two work friends into covering up Yayoi’s impulsive act.

So if she couldn’t even manage to get things right in her own family, why was she getting mixed up in Yayoi’s affairs? At a loss for an answer...

The first quarter of Out didn't fully capture my attention but I had never considered abandoning it. The synopsis made it clear that Out was not a conventional whodunit so the main enticement was in seeing whether Yayoi would get away with murder. And as I progressed, Out became less easy to put down and I began to wonder for whom I should cheer. This is a novel of anti-heros and of victims seeking justice.

Grisly moments with graphic violence and macabre humor punctuated the bigger themes that characterized this Japanese tale. In the US, the squeaky wheel gets the oil but in Japan, that wheel gets pulled off and tossed out. Kirino didn't gloss over the inequities experienced by women and immigrants. Wage discrimination was blatant and the "glass ceiling" was shatter-proof. So there was a steady and consistent depiction of the anomie within Japanese society, particularly for those who resided in high-cost Tokyo. When a society is thus structured, it is no wonder that volcanic discontent randomly explodes out.

Graphic gore is not at all my thing. But Kirino refrained from bludgeoning the reader at the very worst moments, and I was occasionally startled into shocked laughter. I would not describe this novel as funny despite these flashes of gallows humor. Out was unexpected and unpredictable all the way to the last page.

[Laurie (barksbooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book about a group of late shift female co-workers at a boxed lunch factory. It is extremely effective in portraying the desperation in their day to day lives and shows how even the most gruesome of deeds can become just another yucky job if the pay is good enough. It's so violent that, at times, it's almost funny and still very sad and frighteningly realistic as well. This was one of those impossible to put down books but it isn't for the faint of heart as it gets quite grisly.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

No siempre la literatura japonesa actual es una delicada trama de sentimientos, llena de silencios y metáforas sutiles, y la prueba es este incalificable thriller? que nos sacude todos los esquemas.

Las protagonistas son un grupo de mujeres que trabajan en el turno de noche en una fábrica de comida envasada. Una de ellas se ve implicada en un delito violento y la ayuda del grupo será imprescindible para solucionar el problema.

Lo fundamental no es la trama, aunque también es sorprendente y se aleja de los esquemas del género, pero lo más importante son los personajes de las cuatro mujeres y sus circunstancias familiares. La autora se detiene en cada una de ellas, cada una a su manera víctima de una sociedad patriarcal e injusta que a menudo convierte la familia en una forma de esclavitud para la madre. Con todo ello nos ofrece un retrato muy completo de la sociedad japonesa actual, especialmente de las condiciones laborales y las relaciones humanas.

Al tener 500 páginas la lectura es más lenta que un thriller convencional, pero es un retrato costumbrista y no exento de humor - también con un toque gore - que a mí me ha resultado muy interesante.

[Estelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I keep hesitating between 1 and 2 stars... I'm going to be generous and say "it was ok" and it was entertaining enough that I kept reading till the end.
This is just my opinion, but I found "Out" to be poorly written and poorly constructed. Most characters and their reactions weren't credible at all, and the story completely lack of suspense or tension. It was more laughable than gripping.
Not my kind of book at all.

[Joce (squibblesreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

good god this is creepy. so so interesting but not a perfect book. after more though, i’m going to give it 4 stars :)
tw: rape, assault, violence

[Sumaîya Afrôze Puspîta · Rating 4 out of 5]

মাঝেমাঝে এমন ব‌ই পাওয়া যায়, যা পড়ে আমি ছটফট করি কিন্তু লিখতে পারি না কিছুই। এই ব‌ইটাও তেমন। একটানা পড়তে কষ্ট হয়নি, কিন্তু লিখতে চেয়েই ক্লেশ হচ্ছে।

ঘটনার শুরু এক দম্পতির কলহ-মাধ্যমে স্ত্রী কর্তৃক স্বামীকে খুন করার মধ্য দিয়ে। এখানে খুনটাই মুখ্য নয়, বরং একটি খুন সংঘটিত হবার আগে-পরে ঘটনার আশেপাশের সবার মানসিকতা, মনোশক্তির দৃঢ়তা, বিচিত্র পরিবর্তন এবং কত অভাবনীয়ভাবে যে উৎপাত শুরু হতে পারে–এসবের শক্তিশালী বর্ণনা, সাথে জাপানের অন্ধকার দিকের কথা প্রধান হিসেবে উল্লেখযোগ্য।

গল্পটা ভালো লাগার দুটি কারণ। এক. পরিমিত ভায়োলেন্স। সাধারণ মারমার কাটকাট পড়তে পড়তে হাঁফিয়ে উঠেছিলাম, সেখানে ধুমধাম অ্যাকশন ছাড়া স্লো গতির এই 'মশলা' পুরোই বুম! এর আগে জাপানিজ ডার্ক থ্রিলার 'ইন দ্য মিসো স্যুপ'-এর সহিংসতার দৃশ্যগুলো জঘন্য লেগেছিল। দুই. অনুমান মিলে যাবার মতো কাহিনি এগোয়নি; প্রতি পৃষ্ঠাতেই রোমাঞ্চ ছিল। এবং শেষটাও এত‌ই অননুমেয় ছিল, যার কারণে এক তারা দিইনি‌।

আমি খুব বেশি জাপানিজ ব‌ই পড়িনি। কিন্তু যা পড়লাম, জাপানিদের সম্পর্কে জেনে খুবই অবাক লাগে। প্রযুক্তিতে উন্নত এবং পৃথিবীর সবচেয়ে সভ্য জাতি হিসেবে পরিচিত তারা কতটা একাকিত্বে ভোগে। তারা একেকজন যেন স্রেফ শ্রমদাসে পরিণত হয়েছে। অথচ টাকা দিয়েও এই বিষণ্ণতা দূর করতে ব্যর্থ। পারিবারিক সম্প্রীতিও খুবই হতাশাজনক। যেকোনো দেশের বৃহৎ সাহিত্যে মূলত দেশটির বৃহত্তর জনগোষ্ঠীর কথাই উঠে আসে–সেই হিসেবে এই কথাগুলো বললাম ব‌ইটির চরিত্রসাপেক্ষে। ডার্ক সিন নিয়ে সমস্যা না থাকলে ব‌ইটি ভাবতে উদ্রেক করবার মতোই।

[Chris Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for a book that masquerades as a thriller but, in reality, is more of a psychologically macabre art house horror story, then this might be for you.

There are no ghosts, vampires, or creepy puppets in this. Oh, no. It's a tale with a simple concept. One you might have even seen or read about in a typical police procedural, but with a few unique twists.

The book stars four women who work the night shift at a boxed dinner processing plant. Each has troubles at home, but after Yayoi’s husband, Kenji, comes home and says he’s gambled their life savings away, she’s fed up and 💀 him on the spot.

Yayoi calls Masako, the "leader" of the group, to ask her what she ought to do. Masako, who is surprisingly calm, says she will take care of it. She gets the other two ladies in on the deal, and they get to work hiding the body. Surprisingly, Masako is the only one who does not want compensation for her troubles. Now why would she do that? She and Yayoi are not particularly close friends. The answer to that question lies somewhere deep down, and the answer is shocking, to say the least. 

As you can imagine, the police go on a manhunt and start to make inquiries around town. Can they all keep their cool and fool everyone, or will the pressure get to them? As more and more characters are added to the fray and greed, helplessness, and anger start to boil over, who will be left standing in the end?

Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This book is incredibly thrilling but equally depraved. Yes, these ladies all need a lifeline, but to get it, they must undergo some horrific acts. And as the layers are pulled back and you get deeper into the story, it really starts to test your nerve. The flood of emotions begins to veer in all directions, and the final third is unlike anything I've ever read.

📝 | Extra | 📝’s

❖ This one has every trigger warning in the book, so be weary.
❖ Some of Hans Holbein's art came to mind as I read. Especially Dance of Death.
❖ The main plot may seem fairly cut and dry at the beginning, but it has some crazy twists and turns.
❖ There are major consequences for our actions, folks. Some of which our characters take for granted.
❖ I did not care for the initial police investigation. One of the detectives connected some dots that would have been a stretch with the information that he had at the time.

📚 | Category | 📚

❖ Crime drama | Horror | Mystery

💡| Memorable Quotes |💡

❖ "I’m desperate for money’. She said. And I’m willing to march into hell if I’m following you."
❖ "She couldn’t live her life as someone’s prisoner the way he had lived his, caught up in a dream of the past, with no way forward and no way back, forced to dig down inside oneself."
❖ "The role kept her going, helped her survive the dreary work; it was her one source of pride. But the painful truth was that there was no one to help her."

🎵| Soundtrack |🎵

❖ Meshuggah - Bleed
❖ Iron Maiden – Dance of Death
❖ Noumena – Totuus
❖ Zara Larsson – I Can’t Fall In Love Without You
❖ Rage Against The Machine – Sleep Now In The Fire
❖ Silence Lies Fear - Shores Of Time

⭐ | Rating | ⭐

❖ 4.5 out of 5

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 4 out of 5]

CRITIQUE:

The Chauvinism Implicit in the Male Use of Language

When I was only up to page 43 of this novel, a GR friend asked me what I thought of it. My response at the time was that it seemed to be very domestic.

I was quite embarrassed to say this, because the novel inhabited the world of women, and my response could be construed as implying that there was something inferior about this world (when compared to the world of men).

That was certainly not my intention, but, as I read on, I continued to ponder the significance of my view of domesticity.

Domestic Violence

So how and why did I reach this point of view?

Firstly, the novel concerns a group of Japanese women shiftworkers, who are work colleagues at a factory that produces box lunches.

Secondly, it concerns the domestic life of one of these women, who is married and has two children.

Her marriage dissipates as her husband develops a gambling habit, spends more and more of his income at a small casino, becomes obsessed with one of the hostesses, gets into financial difficulties, and starts to beat and bruise his wife at home.

Domestic violence arises from, and inflicts itself on, a domestic situation.

"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

One night, this woman kills her husband. Then she enlists her colleagues to remove and dispose of his body, thus making them accessories after the fact. (Domestic violence leads to reciprocal, if disproportionate, violence.)

The husband has a life insurance policy, part of the proceeds of which are retained by the wife, and the balance shared with her accomplices (so they can repay personal loans).

When their loans are repaid, their creditors (small time loan sharks) wonder where they received the money from. Besides, some local Yakuza become aware of what has happened (the women have been "found out"), and endeavour to blackmail the women into disposing of bodies for them.


Film Poster

Inside/Outside

Apart from work, the women have tended to remain (confined) indoors (inside their small rented apartments).

However, their criminal activities take them outside (hence, perhaps, the title, "Out"), where they must confront both the police and the Yakuza. Thus, they must go from one form of confinement to another. Whereas they were once captive to their husbands or partners, they are now captive to their creditors and blackmailers.

The only solution for some of the women is to exit the country, at which point they have effectively out-witted or out-smarted their predators.

This novel would make a great film. The 2002 film of the same name is only loosely based on the plot of the film (which is much more diverse than what I have suggested above).


SOUNDTRACK:

Kana Nishino (西野 カナ) - "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" (Taylor Swift Cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IQj...



This review is dedicated to DA Fani Willis ("A man is not a plan").