Out: A Novel
This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
This book has been lying on my shelves for months. I did not realize I had not registered it so now I do not recall where I got it. Probably a thrift shop here in San Luis Obispo.
An amazing book. I had this sitting on a shelf for months while I gulped down potboilers of one sort or another. I thought this one might be more work to get into and through. It certainly wasn't.
The book was written in Japanese and translated into English. From where I sit it seems a good translation, flows well, makes sense, keeps the humor and suspense moving.
A group of four women work at a box lunch factory, putting together box lunches in the wee hours. They work from midnight to 5:30 am and earn 25% more than they would in a day job. For various reasons the night shift suits them better. The four have become a team at work, assigning different tasks to different ones so they can accomplish the goal efficiently. And so they become friends, to an extent. But any comparison with chicklit ends here. No female bonding, no deep listening, no extra caring for the other. These women all have difficulties at home, all struggle with day-to-day existence. The one who emerges as the main character, Masako, 43 years old, even comes to wonder what it's all about, why she has worked so hard, for what?
Another, a young pretty mother of two, Yayoi, reaches a boiling point one night when her husband comes home late as usual and she knows he has gambled again and is yearning for a beautiful prostitute. Propelled by her anger, she throws her belt around the neck of the drunken man and strangles him to death.
And thus it begins. She calls Masako, who has a reputation for being calm and intelligent and hard to shock. Masako takes over, as Yayoi hoped she would, and together they haul the body into her car. Masako then calls on the two others to help her cut up the body in her larger bathroom. The three double-bag the pieces, 43 bags as I recall, and each takes a load to drop off in different trash bins around the city.
Somehow this act did not horrify me. Perhaps it is because Masako took the approach I would have in a similar situation. I think I would have been inclined to call the police, actually, but I do not live in Japan and am not subject to the cultural and legal system in place there. If I were inclined to think it best to make the body disappear I would have approached it the same way: think of the body as an object and the cutting up as a "job", even a "challenge". That way it gets done. One puts the horrifying aspects on hold and just does it. I liked this aspect of Masako because it is what many of us learn just to get by. We can't always count on others, we can't be helpless, we must know how to get a job done ourselves.
Clearly one aspect of this novel is the feminist aspect. Japanese society, which emulates the U.S. in many aspects, still clings to outdated versions of what it means to be male or female. Thus there are cultural restrictions that make women turn to other means to get what they want. In this novel we meet different personalities dealing with life differently: the spendthrift who has gone to loan sharks, the dutiful daughter who takes care of an ungrateful mother-in-law, the mostly submissive Yayoi, who clings to mother figures, and the strong, intelligent, and seemingly cold Masako. We get into the minds of each, as well as into the minds of the other major characters.
And such characters they are: the club owner who has a murder in his past, a murder he can't really explain even to himself; the loan shark whose main focus is how to get rich quick and who is willing to flaunt his association with the mob; the Brazilian-Japanese whose language difficulties lead him to take drastic action to assuage his loneliness. Each character comes deeply and psychologically alive in these pages. The sense of reality is astonishing.
As the novel continues it heads down unexpected and sometimes oddly humorous paths. At the heart, though, it is a psychological thriller that kept me awake at night, that I drank down hungrily.
The book was written in Japanese and translated into English. From where I sit it seems a good translation, flows well, makes sense, keeps the humor and suspense moving.
A group of four women work at a box lunch factory, putting together box lunches in the wee hours. They work from midnight to 5:30 am and earn 25% more than they would in a day job. For various reasons the night shift suits them better. The four have become a team at work, assigning different tasks to different ones so they can accomplish the goal efficiently. And so they become friends, to an extent. But any comparison with chicklit ends here. No female bonding, no deep listening, no extra caring for the other. These women all have difficulties at home, all struggle with day-to-day existence. The one who emerges as the main character, Masako, 43 years old, even comes to wonder what it's all about, why she has worked so hard, for what?
Another, a young pretty mother of two, Yayoi, reaches a boiling point one night when her husband comes home late as usual and she knows he has gambled again and is yearning for a beautiful prostitute. Propelled by her anger, she throws her belt around the neck of the drunken man and strangles him to death.
And thus it begins. She calls Masako, who has a reputation for being calm and intelligent and hard to shock. Masako takes over, as Yayoi hoped she would, and together they haul the body into her car. Masako then calls on the two others to help her cut up the body in her larger bathroom. The three double-bag the pieces, 43 bags as I recall, and each takes a load to drop off in different trash bins around the city.
Somehow this act did not horrify me. Perhaps it is because Masako took the approach I would have in a similar situation. I think I would have been inclined to call the police, actually, but I do not live in Japan and am not subject to the cultural and legal system in place there. If I were inclined to think it best to make the body disappear I would have approached it the same way: think of the body as an object and the cutting up as a "job", even a "challenge". That way it gets done. One puts the horrifying aspects on hold and just does it. I liked this aspect of Masako because it is what many of us learn just to get by. We can't always count on others, we can't be helpless, we must know how to get a job done ourselves.
Clearly one aspect of this novel is the feminist aspect. Japanese society, which emulates the U.S. in many aspects, still clings to outdated versions of what it means to be male or female. Thus there are cultural restrictions that make women turn to other means to get what they want. In this novel we meet different personalities dealing with life differently: the spendthrift who has gone to loan sharks, the dutiful daughter who takes care of an ungrateful mother-in-law, the mostly submissive Yayoi, who clings to mother figures, and the strong, intelligent, and seemingly cold Masako. We get into the minds of each, as well as into the minds of the other major characters.
And such characters they are: the club owner who has a murder in his past, a murder he can't really explain even to himself; the loan shark whose main focus is how to get rich quick and who is willing to flaunt his association with the mob; the Brazilian-Japanese whose language difficulties lead him to take drastic action to assuage his loneliness. Each character comes deeply and psychologically alive in these pages. The sense of reality is astonishing.
As the novel continues it heads down unexpected and sometimes oddly humorous paths. At the heart, though, it is a psychological thriller that kept me awake at night, that I drank down hungrily.
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
Mailed to sister Cathy.
Mailed to sister Cathy.
