Out by
Natsuo Kirino
pbk out September 04
(Vintage)
at £6.99
Caught out again. No sooner had I picked out Robert Wilson's The Silent and the
Damned as the best I'd read this year, then along comes this one. Shortlisted for the
Edgar, passed over in favour of Ian Rankin, then sadly omitted from the CWA's Gold
Dagger shortlist, here's a book that anyone who prizes the best in crime fiction should
read.
Masako Katori is one of four women trapped in a dead-end night shift job in a
factory assembling boxed lunches for sale in Tokyo's many thousands of convenience
stores. The work is poorly paid, back-breaking and regimented, the efficiency on the
assembly line depending on its weakest link. Yoshie, the backbone of the line, is a
widow with an invalid mother and a teenage daughter. Kuniko copes with the stress of
the job and an unfeeling partner by feeding her increasing girth. Yayoi is at her wits
end: while she scrapes some kind of a living on behalf of her two kids, her
increasingly violent husband has frittered away their savings in the baccarat and
hostess clubs of Tokyo. A display one night of his indifference to her suffering is
finally too much: she strangles him with a handy belt. Led by Masako, the group rally
round to conceal the murder and dispose of the body.
The steadily mounting tension of the first half of the book, of course, results
from the 'will they be found out' mechanic, particularly once the police become
involved, alerted when some carelessly discarded body parts are discovered. But note
how the author, whilst continuing to fill out the impoverished lives of her female
characters, gradually broadens her canvas to include figures from the equally deadly
background of the Tokyo underworld, the loan sharks that feed on the unwary for
instance, and, as police suspicions widen, key players in the night club where Yayoi's
husband lost his money.
But as the book continues, its focus gradually shifts. Whilst never losing sight of
the plight of the four women, Masako moves to centre stage, her strength growing as
she copes with the aftermath of the murder. It's an evolution that sets in motion a
series of events that lift the book onto a different level entirely and leads finally to the
book's staggeringly transgressive, haunting and yes, liberating climax. It's an ending
that will stay with you for days, if not weeks and months. And it's only as you ponder
the outcome that you realise just how carefully you have been prepared for
it. Mistaking subject for style, the book has been criticised as both drab and slow,
Kirino's achievment (she has won both literary and crime fiction prizes in Japan) lies
in bringing those drab lives to life and then forging something entirely distinctive and
original from the material. Nor does Stephen Snyder's translation strike any false
notes. It's a book that can be read on several levels: as a slow-burning thriller of
unusual subtlety, as a story of l'amour fou, or as a candid analysis of lives,
particularly female lives, lived at the edge of Japanese society. As for the slowness,
well, it never dragged for me. About as far from the glib mechanics of Harlan Coben
and the like as it is possible to get, there is always sufficient depth of theme and
characterisation to keep the interest going, as well as a plot that is a marvel of
construction.
A major book. Don't miss out on this one.
Out by
Natsuo Kirino
