Convenience Store Woman
A Novel
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4.1 • 45 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award
Longlisted for the Believer Book Award
Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
The English-language debut of an exciting young voice in international fiction, selling 660,000 copies in Japan alone, Convenience Store Woman is a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits into the rigidity of its work culture only too well.
The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction—many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual—and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…
A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If you love a novel that helps you see the world through someone else’s eyes, you’ll adore this one. Keiko doesn’t really understand social cues, and that’s why she loves the unchanging interactions and rituals of her soothing job at the Tokyo convenience store where she’s worked for 18 years. But at 36, she’s finding it harder to fight the pressure to get married or find a “real” career. So when the sullen, self-pitying misanthrope Shiraha begins working at the store, Keiko decides he might somehow be the answer to her problems. Or…maybe he’ll just make everything worse. This short, sharp novel is an unexpectedly funny and compassionate portrait of two outsiders trying to navigate a world that doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Murata's slim and stunning Akutagawa Prize winning novel follows 36-year-old Keiko Furukura, who has been working at the same convenience store for the last 18 years, outlasting eight managers and countless customers and coworkers. Keiko, who has a history of strange impulses wanting to grill and eat a dead bird, pulling down a hysterical teacher's pants to get her to be quiet applied to work at the Hiiromachi Station Smile Mart on a whim. Where someone else might find the expected behavior for convenience store workers arbitrary and strict, Keiko thrives under such clear direction, finally finding a way to be normal. In fact, she thinks of herself as two Keikos: her real self, who has existed since she was born, and "convenience-store-worker-me." But normalcy is not static, as Keiko discovers. The older she gets, and the further she drifts from milestones like having a "real" job, marrying, and having children, the more her friends and family push her towards change. She strikes a sham marriage deal with a lazy and shifty ex-coworker, which, though it finally makes her "normal" in the eyes of others, throws her entire life and psyche into turmoil. Murata's smart and sly novel, her English-language debut, is a critique of the expectations and restrictions placed on single women in their 30s. This is a moving, funny, and unsettling story about how to be a "functioning adult" in today's world.
