Natsuo Kirino's Out is truly a universal tale, meaning a
truly multiculturally applicable novel, meaning one that will
be understood anywhere in the world where there are loan
sharks, illegal casinos, and middle-aged working-class women
toiling like galley slaves on the night shift in grueling
dead-end assembly-line jobs. In this case the gig is packing
prefab food into lunch boxes from midnight to 6 a.m. only to
return home to abusive, cheating husbands who blithely relate
how they've gambled away the family savings before punching
wifey in the gut, or docile deadbeats who run off with all
her pay, or dour, self-absorbed types disinterested in
everything about the little woman揺er mind, pussy,
problems耀ave her penchant for putting dinner on the
table like clockwork. This doesn't begin to describe the
all-around appeal of various children (and in one case an
infantile mother-in-law) who are either young and needy,
'ho-ing and greedy, or expert in the use of sile! nce as a
passive-aggressive weapon. None more so than the son who, in
the first words his mother has heard from him in years,
nearly sells her out to the police, then cries out "Thanks
for nothing, bitch," when she informs she might be leaving
the family.
rest at
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0338/tate.php
Mark Hall
markhall@gol.com
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