Out’s female characters are not treasured blossoms of womanhood but four desperate individuals trapped in dysfunctional relationships with men who are predators or parasites, labouring under the burden of heavy chores and responsibilities. In its depiction of four Japanese housewives employed on the graveyard shift at a boxed-lunch factory in a dreary suburb of Tokyo, Out presents a land and a people far removed from popular imaginings of a mysterious East of geishas and cherry trees. Natsuo Kirino is the pen-name of Mariko Hashioka, born in 1951, a prolific crime-writer most famous for her 1997 novel Out, published in English translation in 2004. The novels of Natsuo Kirino are not for the faint-hearted, nor are they for westerners loath to abandon the cultural stereotype of the Japanese woman as a delicate and cherished oriental flower.
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