Review: Out by Natsuo Kirino

5 stars for Out by Natsuo Kirino.

Out is not your run-of-the-mill story; definitely not what I have expected out of a Japanese female author. What astound me the most are the author's crafting of characters that go way beyond skin deep and her attention to details in a well built-up world of its own. This is no doubt an author whose work goes well beyond the conventional crime novel.

It starts out like any other day, or more accurately night, for four housewives (Masako Katori, Kuniko Jonouchi, Yoshie Azuma and Yayoi Yamamoto) who work the graveyard shift at the same boxed-lunch factory. Everything is as ordinary as can be for these four typical Japanese women struggling to make ends meet.

But soon enough, the story takes an unexpected turn and spirals into a dark tale filled with vivid ghastly details layered with lies and deceit and violence that chill me to the bone and make my skin crawl. Ironically, instead of being put off, the ruthlessness and heartlessness of it all suck me right into the story and spur me to keep the pages turning.

I highly recommend this crime fiction, but it is a tale not for the faint-hearted. Read it only if you have the stomach for a life lived in the secret embrace of a dark memory. If not, forget about it.


Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Publication date: 2 Sep 2004

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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 the shrewdest, most clear-eyed creations in recent fiction. Masako's own search for a way out of the straitjacket of a dead-end life leads her, too, to take drastic action.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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