Isn't that just the cutest Trail Blazer fan you've ever seen? He was a champ too -- I only had to nurse him in the bathroom once! (I'm the queen of nursing in public bathrooms -- not that this is something to be proud of. When Elliott was a baby, I nursed him in the bathroom at my brother's high school graduation and my skirt fell in the toilet.)
Of course, I didn't even take into account that the Rose Garden's playoff noise would be eardrum shattering; so, I felt like parent of the year trying to cheer for a basketball game while holding my hands over his little ears...and someone behind us spilled beer all over the Baby Bjorn...but whatever -- barring permanent hearing loss, I think it was totally worth it.
It's Friday and that means it's random book review time. Here's our book for this week!
The book is "Out" by Natsuo Kirino. (PS. The above picture is for my colleague Stacy who said I was looking uncommonly primped and ready to go for pictures seeming as how I have a newborn and a toddler in my house. I didn't primp for this. It's three-days-unshowered Shelbi. And seconds after I took this picture, I was drinking wine from the bottle (Earth Day = saving water not washing wine glasses) and spilled it down my white shirt and on to my child. Parenting fail.)
I read "Out" in 2007. But the book has stuck with me and I think it's a necessary read for fans of Japanese literature and gruesome crime dramas. (Be forewarned: There is a particularly graphic scene of mutilation ala the "Saw" movies!) It's gritty. But it's not just a make-you-uncomfortable thriller -- this book is also a social commentary on Japan's working class and it's view of women's roles in a post bubble economy. It's got the Yakuza too! And powerful things to say about love and abuse. What I loved the most was the marriage between the banal and the extraordinary.
Each of the women are fully fleshed-out characters and the themes are genre-bending...which makes this book more literary than pulp.
Here's the blurb if you're interested in the plot basics:
Facing the daily burdens of slavish work conditions, stale marriages, and a society refusing to show them proper respect, the women on the nightshift at a suburban Tokyo factory are all looking for one thing -- a way out. When pretty young Yayoi takes a beating from her deadbeat husband, her coworkers do little more than help their friend keep pace with the line. But a new kind of sisterhood emerges when Yayoi requires assistance in disposing of her husband's dead body.
My passion for books written by Japanese authors, set in Japan, or about Japan is a pretty big part of who I am. I think Kirino's work is great. I have her next book "Grotesque" on my to-read list.
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