Four women work nights together on the production line of a pre-packaged lunch company in Tokyo. Although they appear very different, they are all trapped in lives of obligation, poverty, and isolation.
The unofficial leader of the group, Masako radiates competence, is strong, smart, composed and too capable for a menial, dead-end job – but at home she lives with a son who hasn’t spoken to her for a year and a husband she no longer sleeps with.
Plump young Kuniko compensates for the emptiness of her life with possessions and food – if she just had the money she deserves she would be happy, but in the meantime she’s drowning in debt.
Middle-aged widow Yoshie works to support her petulant adolescent daughter and her unappreciative, incontinent, invalid mother-in-law – she can’t see a way out of a life filled with hard work and exhaustion.
Mother of two young sons, beautiful Yayoi has always let her looks stand in for backbone – and her womanising, baccarat-addicted husband abuses her, until the night she kills him, and turns to her friends for help.
This complex novel portrays a strong sense of place – one that is wholly foreign to my experience. The woman are believable and distinct, their bleak existences vivid and suffocating, and their weaknesses all too evident.
The three central male characters are bound together by their obsession with Masako - lonely Brazilian-Japanese migrant and co-worker Kazuo thinks he could find peace with her; polished Yakusa loan shark hard man Jumonji, is inspired by her; and casino owner and one-time murderer Satake aka Sato, wants to re-live his greatest, life-affirming moment by raping and killing her.
The writing employs a little too much telling: “Since she was completely self-centred, Kuniko thought it natural that Masako would be willing to lend [money] to her if she was willing to lend to anyone” but this is forgivable. It is strongly flavoured by its setting, but the heart of it is universal. I enjoyed reading Out, and found the characters and plot interesting and textured, but I wasn’t strongly engaged by any of the characters, and didn’t really care what happened to them. - Alex
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