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Out

Natsuo Kirino,

Stephen Snyder (Translator)

3.92 · Rating details · 23,451 ratings · 2,519 reviews

Natsuo Kirino's novel tells a story of random violence in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works a night shift making boxed lunches brutally strangles her deadbeat husband and then seeks the help of her co-workers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime.

The ringleader of this cover-up, Masako Katori, emerges as the emotional heart of Out and as one of t ...more

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Paperback, 400 pages

Published January 4th 2005 by Vintage (first published July 15th 1997)

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· 23,451 ratings · 2,519 reviews

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Jun 23, 2015 Jim Fonseca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-authors, favorite-books

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 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.
...more

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Nov 22, 2013 David Putnam rated it it was amazing

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.

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Sep 04, 2013 Samadrita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asian-literature, behemoth, nihon-ga-suki, suspense-thrillers, by-women-who-matter, human-drama, spookfest, disturbia, cherished, crime-noir

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 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. ...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, crime, favourite, 2008, cover-love

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 ...more

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Jan 21, 2008 Preeta rated it it was ok

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 nuanc ...more

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Nov 04, 2018 Robin rated it it was ok

Shelves: noir, 2018, translation, japan, thriller

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 po ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Edward Lorn rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Fans of noir and crime fiction.

Recommended to Edward by: Bark

Reviewing good books has always been difficult for me. Not because I don't know what to say, but because I don't want to say too much. Part of the wonder of reading, for me, is discovery, and I want you to be able to discover this book for yourselves.

Predictable books are the worst, and for the most part I do not read synopses. I decide what to read based on friend reviews/recommendations and, yes, the absolutely risky business of buying media based on pretty packaging. I dug the cover of this ...more

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Jun 23, 2018 Beverly rated it really liked it

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, ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Melki rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-fiction

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 disturb ...more

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Jul 11, 2007 Yulia rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Yulia by: Frank Bogues

Shelves: read-to-me-by-frank, japandemonium, criminal-intent

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 ...more

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Mar 13, 2019 Apoorva rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller-horror, japan, beautiful-covers

‘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 crim ‘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 ...more

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Oct 24, 2017 Joce (squibblesreads) rated it really liked it

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

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Mar 11, 2020 Meagan ✊🏼 Blacklivesmatter ✊🏼Blacktranslivesmatter rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020-popsugar-challenge, diverse-main-characters

That ending 👀👀 was weird but interesting. Overall great story! Not at all what I was expecting. I think the story ended up being a great connection to the title.

Popsugar 2020 Reading Challenge
A book set in Japan, the host of 2020 Olympics
A book set in a city that has hosted the olympics
(Tokyo, Japan in 1964).

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Apr 08, 2020 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020

‘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 sn ...more

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Mar 27, 2018 Supreeth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, 2018, read-in-college, favorites, japan, books-i-own, crime-mystery-thriller, noir

I seem to be fascinated by every Japanese crime-thriller I read. But this one definitely stands OUT. Japanese books of these genres are darker, creepier and more thrilling than everything else.

Set in 1990's Japan, somewhere in Tokyo, OUT revolves around four middle aged women working night shift in a factory. They're all unhappy with their disappointed lives, abusive husbands, depressed kids and lousy jobs. There are lot of characters but it is centered around, as the blurb says, ringleader, fo ...more

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May 11, 2015 Estelle rated it it was ok

Shelves: mystery-thriller-crime, japan

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.

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Mar 04, 2018 Tammie rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror-dark

Out was a solid 4 star read for me. The book centers around a group of women that work together in a factory-one kills her husband and the others assist her in getting rid of his body. Out was a complex story that is well-written; the only part that was disappointing was the ending (way too graphic for my liking). Recommended to mature/adult readers.

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Feb 11, 2010 Bark rated it it was amazing

Shelves: disturbing, horror, favorites

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.

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Feb 20, 2010 Melanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller-i-own

Can you say - gruesome and violent? Holy cow! The book blurb tells you - a woman kills her husband and then asks her coworkers for help after the fact. I felt like I got to know the stories of the wife and her coworkers well enough. There is also a concurrent set of characters related to what the deceased husband was up to before his wife had had enough. I also felt their stories were were well told. Sometimes the story felt a bit slow to me but not in a slogging kind of way, just slow. It's har ...more

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Jun 08, 2007 Angela rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: People who like FREAKY stuff

Shelves: japanese-authors

This book is full of amazingly WRONG situations and I thought it was amazing.

HOWEVER...

I may have thought it was amazing because I have lived in Japan for nearly three years and I felt like I could identify with the characters. I picked up on cultural subtleties that made me laugh and made me cringe. I rolled my eyes at Japanese women being Japanese women in the book and I cheered when they broke free from that mould - even though breaking free meant that they were ostracized from society and th ...more

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Feb 19, 2008 Hertzan Chimera rated it it was amazing

Masako Katori; Kuniko Jonouchi; Yoshie Azuma; Yayoi Yamamoto; who are these normal people? Well, they all work the night shift at the local boxed-lunch factory. From midnight until 6 a.m. every 'day' they prepare these meals for the office workers and commuters of downtown Tokyo. It's not much of a life but they work well as a team and they always snatch the best part of the conveyor belt; the easiest jobs, if you will.

These four unassuming women are the heroines of Natsuo Kirino's novel OUT, wi Masako Katori; Kuniko Jonouchi; Yoshie Azuma; Yayoi Yamamoto; who are these normal people? Well, they all work the night shift at the local boxed-lunch factory. From midnight until 6 a.m. every 'day' they prepare these meals for the office workers and commuters of downtown Tokyo. It's not much of a life but they work well as a team and they always snatch the best part of the conveyor belt; the easiest jobs, if you will.

These four unassuming women are the heroines of Natsuo Kirino's novel OUT, winner of Japan's top mystery prize and a 300,000 copies bestseller.

When you first begin reading this 500 page book, it seems a little slow - telling the tale of the charmless lives of these industrial monkeys as they fill their hours chucking ingredients into boxed lunches. They're an odd assortment of ages, these women, from an odd assortment of social and family backgrounds.

Masako's teenage son hasn't spoken to her in a year, neither has her husband. Kuniko is so far in debt, yet lives a life of apparent luxury. Yoshie has her ailing grandmother at home, nothing more than a cantankerous and grotesquely smelling baby. Yayoi has just killed her husband on the doorstep of their family home...

Yayoi Yamamoto panics and phones her work colleague Masako Katori and asks if she'll help dispose of the body. To her surprise (and eternal gratitude) Masako says, "No problem."

This is a weird book. You're happily thrumming along in the slow lane of its detailed domestic narrative and then someone throws a house brick onto your windscreen from a passing bridge. You swerve to regain control of the car but something's changed. You're no longer driving the same car. This feeling of metamorphosis continues to haunt the rest of the book and you're never certain what will happen next to whom and why. Yeah, I know that's the aim of most mystery-thriller books but this baby goes much deeper into the human psyche than it needs.

It's not just that there's a murder and there's a mystery involved. In fact, there's not much of a mystery involved. We know who did the murder and we know who's helping dispose of the body, all Yayoi's four most trusted work colleagues. 'Most trusted' might not be the right phrase - each of the four girls has a motive outside the purely charitable and this adds to the tension of will-they won't-they be found out.

Remember the way Columbo use to work? He'd be dogged like a pugnacious fox terrier never letting go of his suspect, grinding out every ounce of patience from his poor victims. Well, the two cops who arrive to investigate aren't in Columbo's league and they shouldn't be. This is a more down to earth story where the police don't always get their man. But the feeling you get from the book is of that absolute unending torture that Columbo brought with him. From before the first half of the book it is excruciatingly nerve-wracking.

The star of the book isn't the story or the characterisation, though the murder and Masako's helping dispose of the body are the focus of the narrative, it is the depth of motivation of each of the seven or so main characters that stands out. There's the seemingly above-board hostess club owner Satake, the flamboyantly-named debt collector Jumonji and the Brazilian immigrant worker Kazuo. You feel these people are really living and breathing in the swirling narrative as they batter like mad against the waves to keep their heads above water. Even the four girls have their own stories to tell while the real story chunters on beside them. It's a great complex read.

It's a sometimes gory book with dismemberment, rape and torture. The depiction of the weight of a dismembered human body and the problems of getting rid of how ever many doubled plastic bin liners worth of human garbage is especially well depicted.

The prolonged build up just piles on mental torture upon death threats and theatrical getaways. The final showdown itself is well worth the wait and you'll be gasping for breath long before you've realised how it's going to end. It sure is a strange ending for this genre of novel. Some might call it a down beat ending but that has never bothered this reviewer and because it has the guts of its conviction right up to the end
...more

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May 14, 2015 Gregsamsa rated it really liked it

Recommended to Gregsamsa by: Samadrita

Isn't it weird how some sensations can be intensified by the presence of another, different, sensation? You know, like when you have to pee and you're also really cold?

So many horror writers are bad horror writers because they pack everything onto the back of one horse, horror, and run it to the end. Once a horrific event is reduced to print, it's not the same as horror, so needs more. For me the horrific in itself is rarely enough.

Folks might reasonably quibble over whether Out is a horror nove ...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Tressa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, asian, murder

Out by Natsuo Kirino is a brilliant Japanese murder mystery that’s not much of a mystery at all, at least not a mystery in the sense that we don’t know whodunit. Whodunit is a pretty, young wife and mother of two named Yayoi who is fed up with her husband Kenji’s philandering ways, and decides to strangle him one night in an uncharacteristic moment of rage. Assured that her children heard nothing of the struggle, she calls a friend who works the night shift with her at a boxed lunch factory. As Out by Natsuo Kirino is a brilliant Japanese murder mystery that’s not much of a mystery at all, at least not a mystery in the sense that we don’t know whodunit. Whodunit is a pretty, young wife and mother of two named Yayoi who is fed up with her husband Kenji’s philandering ways, and decides to strangle him one night in an uncharacteristic moment of rage. Assured that her children heard nothing of the struggle, she calls a friend who works the night shift with her at a boxed lunch factory. As she suspects, the pragmatic Masako Katori is not too surprised by the late call, and immediately sets the wheels in motion about how to make the body disappear and maybe make a little money off the insurance payout.

Masako enlists the help of the trusted fifty-something Yoshie, whom she knows is in desperate need of money from caring for her bedridden mother-in-law. But while the two are butchering their first ever dead body in Masako’s bathroom, the fourth friend in their factory clique gets a peek through the window, and Kuniko is enlisted to help with the disposal of the pieces with an offer of money to keep her from blabbing. The body bags have been divided into thirds, and are to be disposed of in different locations all over town. But the sloppy, lazy Kuniko’s bags are easily uncovered and identified, and soon the police show up asking questions. But the police are the least of their worries.

Satake, a calculating nightclub owner and pimp who has his own experience with dead bodies, is arrested for the murder. He is released because of lack of evidence, but he makes finding the killer of this man who stalked one of his girls priority one when he hits the streets. And he has a hunch about where to start looking first: at Kenji’s wife, Yayoi.

Out is one of those delicious domino-effect thrillers in the vein of Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan, where a character’s action leads to an undesirable result, which must be dealt with by an even less sensible and more desperate action, and so on and so on and so on. Out is also a statement about Japan's patriarchal society and the mistreatment of female office and factory workers, and the few options they have for escaping their dreary, tired lives.

Body pieces that won’t stay buried; a wedding band that won't stay thrown away; a hidden key that won't stay submerged; children who know more than should; a loan shark with a tempting but messy business offer; a tenacious detective; and a man and woman who discover after it’s too late that they are more alike than they could ever imagine are the things that make Out the perfect page turner—or button clicker if you own an eReader.
...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Rachel rated it really liked it

Shelves: japan, bechdel-passers, mysteries-with-humor

When I caught the words “hard-boiled” on this book’s back cover before reading it, can’t lie: I was less than enthused. During my embarrassingly long mystery-novel obsession, I’ve pinpointed my favorite kind quite precisely – cerebral social comedies, preferably written by British women between 1915 and ~1965, with levels of gore not to exceed your occasional poisoned crumpet.

Out is not that. Out is not even on the same planet as that, and yet it grabbed me by the shoulders and shook, hard, unt When I caught the words “hard-boiled” on this book’s back cover before reading it, can’t lie: I was less than enthused. During my embarrassingly long mystery-novel obsession, I’ve pinpointed my favorite kind quite precisely – cerebral social comedies, preferably written by British women between 1915 and ~1965, with levels of gore not to exceed your occasional poisoned crumpet.

Out is not that. Out is not even on the same planet as that, and yet it grabbed me by the shoulders and shook, hard, until I tore through it all. And liked it.

Given that we find nine X chromosomes distributed among its five main characters, this isn’t your typical fedoraed American noir either. I mean, this book passes the Bechdel Test, plants a grubby sneaker on the throat of patriarchy, twirls its machete, then comes back for more. It skewers gender inequity, and turns its blades on Japanese ageism and racism for good measure.

Like other hard-boiled crime books, this one is set in all that stuff seething on the edges of a stultifying society. But unlike a lot of those rye-swilling, laconic loner detectives, the decent of these characters into the mire is depicted in agonizingly deep, multi-perspective detail. In fact, most of the mysteriousness of this novel is psychological: will they buy into or opt out of the grim social structures around them? How can they? And what in the hell will their tortured minds lead them to do next?

Right. And about that torture: the violence in this book does tend toward the ridiculously over-the-top, nightmare-making kind. Not my usual cup of (view spoiler) tea, let me tell you. What often bugs me about noir-mystery gore, though, is that, rather than coming off as symptomatic of a rotten society, it just seems kind of gratuitous. But here, the carnage is the story. It’s part of a seamless whole and full of significant, meaty symbolism (oh, how very meaty it is.). Entertaining? Ugh. Not so much.

My biggest bento-box beef with the book was that the integration of the multiple perspectives was occasionally a bit clunky, especially when Kirino hit rewind and replayed the same scene from another point of view. But a very minor beef, this one.

I will be reading more Kirino, for sure. This book is gray, gritty, mad, raw and suffused with the kind of black humor that’ll turn your smile right upside-down. And maybe, with its socially aware black comedy and its unabashedly female perspective, it might inhabit the same planet as my other beloved mysteries after all.

They probably should not have tea with each other, though. I don't want to clean up the mess.
...more

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Apr 07, 2015 El rated it it was ok

Shelves: 21st-centurylit

I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what it is about this book that rubs me slightly the wrong way. It could be as simple as I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as other readers have, but I think there's more to it. And it's probably a combination of things - the fact that the relationship between the women is clunky, as is their dialogue; the fact that people (readers) think that anytime a female protagonist commits violent acts in literature, it immediately is labeled as feminist; the fa I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what it is about this book that rubs me slightly the wrong way. It could be as simple as I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as other readers have, but I think there's more to it. And it's probably a combination of things - the fact that the relationship between the women is clunky, as is their dialogue; the fact that people (readers) think that anytime a female protagonist commits violent acts in literature, it immediately is labeled as feminist; the fact that there were moments that bordered on ridiculous, and not in a good way, and I couldn't decide if it was intentional or not.

It's a fine enough story, and should have been interesting: Four women who have become somewhat-friends working the night shift at a factory making boxed lunches in Tokyo, all of them stuck in the routines of their craptastic lives, until one of them snaps - and rightly so. She asks for her friends' help, they give it, and the story continues. I think had this been the story alone, it might have been a better read overall.

But then there was this other stuff that came up that I understand were there to point out how life sucks for women in Japan (though obviously this isn't just going on in Japan), and so these sections actually came across as being rather heavy handed. The violence doesn't bother me, the gore doesn't bother me, the sex doesn't bother me. But it also didn't feel necessary here. Yeah, yeah, stuff about society and in-your-face and blah blah blah. I get it. But that's also why it felt so clunky and unnecessary. Sometimes when you're trying to make a point, less is more. Sometimes you can just talk too much and ruin what you're trying to say. That's what I felt happened here.

I am glad there's a lot of love for this book. I'm just not one to share it. It turns out I liked it better than I thought I would at roughly the 100 page mark, but I'm still disappointed I didn't dig it as much as other readers.

Has anyone seen the 2002 Japanese movie based on this book? I cannot seem to find it on Netflix, and I hear rumor that they're talking about making an Americanized version at some point. Because Hollywood needs another movie like this? Whatever. ...more

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Oct 28, 2016 Vanessa rated it liked it

3.5 stars.

It took me much longer than originally anticipated to finish reading Out. On paper, this book has everything I love: dark humour, murder, suspense, a Japanese setting. Unfortunately though, this wasn't the standout read I was hoping for, but one with many peaks and troughs.

The initial storyline drew me in: a woman who is abused by her husband ends up killing them, then enlists the help of her night shift co-workers to help her dispose of the body. It's a really awesome idea, and I lov 3.5 stars.

It took me much longer than originally anticipated to finish reading Out. On paper, this book has everything I love: dark humour, murder, suspense, a Japanese setting. Unfortunately though, this wasn't the standout read I was hoping for, but one with many peaks and troughs.

The initial storyline drew me in: a woman who is abused by her husband ends up killing them, then enlists the help of her night shift co-workers to help her dispose of the body. It's a really awesome idea, and I loved how dark it was from the outset. However, as all this happens within the first 100 or so pages, I wasn't entirely sure where the story was going to go after that. What it did turn into was actually very interesting and exciting, but it took a long time to get there.

After the initial action, I felt like I was struggling to get through the book. Up until at least the last 150 pages or so (of a 400 page book), I felt the plot was a little meandering, like it didn't really know where it was going. Although I really liked reading from the various perspectives of the characters involved, there were some other characters brought in quite early, and it was hard for me to understand their real relevance to the story. This annoyed me for a good 200 pages, and although they end up being very essential to the plot, I just felt like a lot of the sections were wasted words, that could have been more focused on the central storyline.

The last 150 or so pages though - phew! Those were what I was hoping for, making the book a real page-turner. I devoured the last third of the book, and there were some really amazing, tense moments in it. I also thought the violence (although sickening at some points) wasn't overdone, which was good as it didn't feel like it was done for effect. In fact, it made the feel of the book more gritty. However, the ending... I didn't like it. I was on a real high reading it until literally about the last 2 pages, and it just flopped for me. I don't know why it had to end the way it did, and I wish it had been done differently.

The book however is of course quite unbelievable - I mean, would you really ask co-workers, people you didn't know all that well, to help you dispose of your husband's dead body? And would they really say yes? Most likely no, but I guess there would have been no story otherwise, and you have to suspend your disbelief as it is a really fun concept when you go with it. Unfortunately, there were just too many lows throughout the book for me to rate it higher than 3.5 stars.

I definitely would like to check out more of Natsuo Kirino's writing though - I've never read Japanese crime fiction before, and I'm definitely intrigued! ...more

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Apr 14, 2011 Becky rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, 2011, library-books, mystery-and-thrillers

I wanted to like this one more than I actually did like it. The beginning of the story, learning about Yayoi, Yoshie, Masako, and Kuniko was interesting, and the death and immediate aftermath was interesting, but I just found myself losing interest shortly after that, and struggled to finish.

I think that this book would work for a lot of people, but I found it kind of disappointing. I found it hard to connect with these characters. I kept thinking how I would react and act and think differently ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 Sheri rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychological-thriller, thriller-or-mystery, reviewed, horror-scary-creepy, contemporary, around-the-globe

Horror is my favorite genre. It isn't always easy to find a horror book with a different story. I'm always searching for the best books I've never heard of before and was lucky in one such search when I found this book. It is dark, gruesome and disturbing. The story is very brutal and even after the initial plot unfolds, the characters continue to spiral into an abyss of darkness and despair. I enjoyed the author very much and even throughout this horrible tale there was humor added in good meas ...more

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Jan 20, 2020 Patricija - aparecium_libri rated it really liked it

It was very interesting, but also very disturbing at the same time. I finally got out of my reading slump though. The characters were somber and nasty, but they didn't feel flat at least. I liked the plot overall and idea of the book but since it gave me nausea I don't think I'll re read this.
Also I hated the ending.

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Mar 07, 2012 Nafiza rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012, books-i-own

It took me about three months to read this novel. For those who know my reading habits, you will be aware that I read fast. Inordinately fast, I am told. The reason for my lagging pace where this book is concerned was not because it was so bad I couldn’t make myself read it, it was because the novel was a bit too realistic, it sucked me in a bit too deeply – enough anyway that I had to put it down, recover and then resume reading. So from the synopsis you will know that four women work the night It took me about three months to read this novel. For those who know my reading habits, you will be aware that I read fast. Inordinately fast, I am told. The reason for my lagging pace where this book is concerned was not because it was so bad I couldn’t make myself read it, it was because the novel was a bit too realistic, it sucked me in a bit too deeply – enough anyway that I had to put it down, recover and then resume reading. So from the synopsis you will know that four women work the nightshift in a bento factory (bento = lunchboxes). One of them kills her husband and another steps up to help her get rid of the body.

Kirino has this particular ability to create relationships between women that are at once simple and profoundly complex. Masako, the so-called ringleader of this quartet of murderers, is a very complicated character. Actually, all of them are but Masako, perhaps, is more complex than any others, maybe because we spend the most time with her as readers. She has no obvious reason for helping Yayoi, who murders her husband after he throws away their savings on gambling and women. The other two women have financial reasons to help Masako get rid of the husband but Masako does not. That in particular is one of the most interesting part.

When the three women (Yayoi is told not to help so she can maintain her alibi) are cutting up the dead husband – those scenes are graphic and written with enough detail that they will pluck you out of your comfortable life and toss you into the wet and cold bathroom, with the tiles beneath your bare feet, the smell of blood in the air and a cut up corpse in front of your eyes. You will hear the wet sliding of the meat that was a man and you will smell the contents of his intestines. It is incredibly vivid and I had to stop reading for a long while.

The novel goes into the human psyche, the depravities humans are capable of and the dark desires that cannot find verbal expressions but more often than not are expressed in actions. There is Satake, the casino owner who is accused of killing the husband because of prior records which include murder of a woman – he swears revenge on these women, Masako in particular and the story takes another turn. If you go into this expecting a neat little resolution, you will be disappointed. It takes a labyrinthine approach to the ending, there is no neatness, no overtly moralistic tone that denounces murder, no punishment, nothing of that matter. This is a study of the human character and psyche but it is not all doom and gloom. It is incredibly profound. I thought I would despise the end and to an extent, it did leave me perplexed but it left me thinking, wondering…and the best books often do. Do I recommend this? I don’t know. You have to have certain tastes to read this and not many people I know do. ...more

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About Natsuo Kirino

Natsuo Kirino

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NATSUO KIRINO, 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 res ...more

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Quotes from Out

“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, yet for a bug curled up tight in it, it was a peaceful and familiar world.” — 21 likes

“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.” — 16 likes

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