I just finished and am really excited about this novel Out from Japanese writer Natsuo Kirino. I’ll let the english translation speak for itself, but as a teaser, here are excerpts from a few interviews she’s given.

From Japanreview:

-Tokyo is a bleak and joyless place in your books. Is Japan doomed? Or is it a condemnation of suburban life in general? Is there such thing as redemption in this day and age?

I don’t this the situation is cause for despair. Rather, the suburbs are interesting in that human desires are transparent and in the forefront. In case of the suburb where Out was set, the small houses all in row are a product of what people desire. It can be seen as quite typically Japanese. I don’t think there is such thing as “society”. There is that much more freedom in that looseness.

In terms of redemption, the question is, redemption from what? I’m not quite sure what you are referring to, but if you return to the former question, the Japanese rarely recognize the sense of redemption because they lack the concept of the “society.” That’s to say, one doesn’t know how to be redeemed, and what you have to do to accept it, and how and who should accept it.

-What influences your work Japanese literature, western literature—or do you read other mystery writers? Are there any books of this genre you feel strongly about? Or are your influenced by other mediums—TV, movies, music, and news events? What current Japanese writers do you like?

When I was a child, I read magazines indiscriminately and I read a lot of foreign juvenile and children’s fiction—mostly books like Adrift in the Pacific, The Three Musketeers, and Little Women. I think that that they may have influenced the way I tell stories.

I don’t really like mysteries so I don’t read many of them of late. I quite like Patricia Highsmith, among others. As for Japanese authors, I would say Ryu Murakami and Fumiko Hayashi. I also read non-fiction. I love movies, especially Scorsese and Lynch. As for music, I am a fan of seventies soul.

From Metro.co.uk bookclub

The sexual violence in the book is very disturbing – did you ever have any qualms about writing those scenes?

It’s very disturbing to write about violence. However, as long as there is such violence in reality (that’s often beyond our imagination) I feel it is my responsibility as a writer to write about them. It’s unfortunate if anyone is disturbed or feels uncomfortable with these scenes (especially the ending), but I actually wrote the book in an effort to eliminate violence from society.

and Booksense.com

-What reaction surprised you the most?

Men were very shocked that a wife could kill her husband. That was really a provocative idea. Japanese men felt so threatened by it. They also never imagined that a woman could write such an aggressive novel. The most shocking part of Out for a lot of people is that it’s written by a married woman who has a family and a child. If the book was written by a man, people wouldn’t be as surprised, and they’d look at it as fiction. But because a woman wrote it and it’s realistic to a certain degree, people were surprised.

-Your novel and many Japanese films from the last few years depict contemporary Japan as an unsettled society whose outward calm masks an underlying current of severe physical and psychological violence. Is this the case?

The old family system is collapsing more and more. Although the division between men and women remains — men still go out and women still stay in — a man now cannot sustain the entire family. We have reached the point where women have to put the children into childcare so that they can work to help support the family, too. Then, the children themselves are under extreme educational pressure. So everybody is making the best effort to sustain him or herself. It is a very confusing time for our society. I have the feeling that people don’t know what to do to get out of their situations.

-Do you think this is creating a culture of violence?

Some of the violence depicted in the media is a metaphor for frustration, but there are more and more cruel crimes happening — and the people who commit these hideous crimes are getting younger and younger. A few years ago, there were a lot of crimes committed by young women. Now it’s kids murdering people. Japanese adults are completely astounded, and don’t know what to do. That’s the reality that we are getting into, and it is getting worse.

Also, thanks to mll3 for turning me on to this novel in the first place.