Out

Vintage Japanese Classics - five masterpieces of Japanese fiction in gorgeous new gift editions - following on from the success of Vintage Russian Classics and European Classics, these are covetable new editions of the best Japanese writers on the Vintage list

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives.

A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband. She confesses her crime to her colleagues and unexpectedly, they agree to help. But then the dismembered body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions and more dangerous enemies begin to close in.

Out is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable.

About the Author

Natsuo Kirino, born in 1951, quickly established a reputation in Japan as one of a rare breed of crime writer whose work goes well beyond the conventional crime novel. This fact has been demonstrated by her winning not only Japan's top mystery award, for Out, but two of its major literary awards, the Naoki Prize and the Tanizaki Prize. Her novels available in English are Out, Grotesque, Real World and In.