Out (Natsuo Kirino)

Out by Natsuo Kirino (1997) is a fast-paced crime story, starring four house-wives as the heroines. They take night-shift job in a boxed-lunch factory in Tokyo. The first woman is Yoshie, the oldest of the four, who lives with her paralysed mother-in-law and a young daughter. Yoshie is a hard worker, but her mother-in-law complains too much and her teenage daughter demands too much money. The 2nd woman is Masako, whose relationship with her husband has turned sour and their son never says a word. Masako is the strongest, and her friends depend on her. The 3rd is Yayoi, the most beautiful among them, who has 2 little boys but is often beaten by her husband. The last is Kuniko, a plump girl who likes to spend money more than she earns, and this habit will lead her into lots of troubles.

Driven by anger because her husband has spent all of their savings to gamble and play in a whorehouse, one night Yayoi kills her husband. Her friends agree to help her get rid of the body, but the weak point of the four friends, Kuniko, for the sake of money, will destroy them all. Meanwhile, a nightclub owner with a dark past, who is arrested by the police because he is suspected of the crime, swears to get his revenge, for the accusation has made him lost everything.

The story reminds me a bit to 'Shallow Grave'. In the movie David dismembers the corpse alone, and as the result, from a boring accountant, he becomes a cold blooded murderer, a nightmare for his friends. The characters in 'Out' have stronger nerves than David, especially Masako and Yoshie, because of their hard life, and for money they will agree to do it again. The novel was unputdownable and the ending was unexpectable. It must be beyond the 4 women's imagination that their friendship will be destroyed by the murder of Yayoi's husband, but they get to know each other better. A corpse is not something to play with, even though the life has gone, and they must pay the price for that. A very high price.