"A story that begins in a boxed-lunch factory outside Tokyo seems unlikely to spiral into a grisly murder, but Natsuo Kirino manages to create a world where such an act seems not just believable, but just justifiable. The best thing I can say about this book is that the characters are so fully realized that I imagined the characters going about their lives even after I had finished reading."
Publisher Vintage
Publication Date 2005-01-04
Section Mystery / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Isabel D.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9781400078370
Nothing in Japanese literature prepares us for the stark, tension-filled, plot-driven realism of Natsuo Kirino’s award-winning literary mystery Out. This mesmerizing novel tells the story of a brutal murder in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works the night shift making boxed lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako emerges as the plot’s ringleader, but quickly discovers that this killing is merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent underbelly of Japanese society. At once a masterpiece of literary suspense and pitch-black comedy of gender warfare, Out is also a moving evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds, and the friendships that bolster them in the aftermath.