Lauren reviews the winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize

Published by Grove Press

At first glance, this book could be mistaken for a story about the monotonous life of a Japanese convenience store worker, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Through the unique and occasionally disturbing (but intriguing!) eyes of the main character Keiko, we see the beauty and pleasure that can come from seemingly boring and mundane things like the repetitive routine of working in a convenience store. 

Keiko has been working at the same store for eighteen years, yet she still finds joy in the familiar rhythms or her job: restocking products, repeating set phrases to customers, preparing fried food. Keiko is also baffled by normal social conventions, by what society expects of her as a woman, and by her family’s constant concern that she’s not making any so-called “progress” in life: they want to see her married with kids. 

The thing that I found most fascinating about Keiko was that she understood these external pressures, but she herself did not seem to feel them or internalise them as most people do. In fact, any actions she took to “fit in”, such as mimicking her colleagues’ fashion sense or speech patterns, seemed to merely be ways to appear normal enough so that others might let her be, so she could continue doing what she loved: working at a convenience store. 

You could certainly class Keiko as an unreliable narrator of sorts, as her take on any situation is skewed by her inability to fully grasp social norms and expectations. But this is what makes her so refreshing. We experience Keiko’s sharp and often amusing observations about the absurd way people act and present themselves in social situations. We see the world through the eyes of someone who is acutely aware that they don’t fit in, and it’s captivating. However, Keiko’s well-structured eighteen-year routine is threatened by the arrival of another outsider in her life, and mounting pressure from her friends and family forces her to make drastic decisions.

Murata manages to beautifully capture the inner world of someone who doesn’t conform, and does not really want to conform, to the pressures of the external world. This book is full of depth and insight, yet it is still somehow light and intensely humorous, and despite her quirks and unusual ways of viewing the world, or perhaps because of them, you find yourself rooting for Keiko and her happiness, whatever that may look like. If you’re after something that is different yet charming, and disturbingly delightful, then this is the book for you!

You can also check out Convenience Store Woman in our DPL catalogue.

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