Out (novel)

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Out is a 1997 Japanese crime novel by Natsuo Kirino. It was translated into English in 2004 by Stephen Snyder and published by Vintage Books. The book won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel and was Kirino’s first novel published in English. The English edition was also nominated for the 2004 Edgar Award for Best Novel. A Japanese film adaptation, Out, directed by Hideyuki Hirayama, appeared in 2002, and there were talks of an American remake directed by Hideo Nakata.

Plot summary:
The story follows four women who work the graveyard shift at a Tokyo bento factory. Masako leads the group; Kuniko is vain and in debt; Yoshie is a single mother who cares for her partly paralyzed mother-in-law; Yayoi is a mother of two whose husband Kenji gambles away the family’s savings and mistreats her. After Kenji’s gambling and abuse escalate, Yayoi kills him in a fit of anger. The four women join forces to dispose of his body, dismembering it and hiding the pieces around Tokyo. When a bag is found, the police begin to investigate, and the women are pulled further into danger as a loan shark pressures them and Satake, a club owner connected to Kenji, seeks to enforce his own will. As fear and desperation mount, the women’s trust frays and they start turning on one another.