OUT

OUT

OUT by Natsuo Kirino

Published by Vintage in 2005

ISBN: 978-1400078370

Available in hardback, paperback, and audio book formats

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Natsuo Kirino's OUT is technically a mystery, not a horror novel. But the story is so bloody, twisted, and grotesque, it's sure to satisfy most horror fans.

In modern-day Japan, four middle-aged women–cool-headed Masako, unappreciated Yoshie, materialistic Kuniko and pretty Yayoi–work the graveyard shift at a lunchbox factory. Their exhausted, miserable lives, complete with hateful family, unrelenting poverty, and thankless drudgery, show no signs of change until Yayoi's husband shows up one evening with an unpleasant revelation for her.

So she kills him.

The four friends rally together to cover up the crime, slicing up the body to hide it in local garbage bins. But even if they fool the police over the course of the resultant investigation, they have a more dangerous enemy to worry about: Satake, a twisted gangster whose life is ruined when the police zero in on him as a suspect. And if he's dangerous when he hates the four women for harming him, imagine how horrific he, with his history of rape-murder, will be when he becomes infatuated with Masako….

OUT is equal parts mystery, societal criticism, and horror. The dismembering of Yayoi's husband (and a few other people before the end), brutal rapes, and bloody murders are handled with graphic detail as Masako and the others fight for their lives against increasingly severe odds. There is no sugar-coating to be found on the story, only ruined relationships, dead-end jobs, and bleak lives. And blood…lots and lots of blood.

And yet there is a kind of hope, because Masako is so willing to search for it. OUT throws a variety of colorful characters at her, from a sociopathic loan shark who thinks she's awesome, to her own teenage son who hates her, to a young immigrant who's so lonely he's on the verge of losing his mind. As she grows and changes with each experience, readers realize Masako might just find the freedom she's looking for, if she can survive the horrific mental and physical trials she'll have to go through to reach it.

OUT was Natsuo Kirino's first book translated into English, and in my opinion, it's her magnum opus. The two published after were both worth reading, but OUT is a cut above just about any other mystery or horror novel out there today.

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Review by Elizabeth Reuter