Keiko Furukura landed her first job at the age of eighteen, working in a Japanese convenience store, called Smile Mart. Eighteen years later she is still there, contented, yet not progressing in life. She works part-time and enjoys the order and routine that the convenience store offers, with every product in its proper place. She even enjoys the sounds of the store; the atmosphere speaks to her. Yet despite the sense of calm the convenience store imparts, her family and friends aren't happy. They feel that she needs to advance in her career, find a boyfriend and get married. In short, they want her to lead a normal life.
Things change gear when the Smile Mart employs Shiraha, a hopeless slacker who tries to seduce the female customers. Shiraha is arrogant and dismissive of society at large – kind of a flipside version of Keiko. He sees human relationships in an evolutionary context. He tells Keiko bluntly that no one would be interested in her sexually and hence she won't be able to pass on her genes. She's an evolutionary dead end. Keiko, who lacks the normal emotional responses (two childhood scenes described early in the book depict her as lacking in empathy), doesn't take any of this personally. In fact, she decides to try and form an alliance with him, hoping to present herself to friends and family as now “normal”. But it work?
Convenience Store Woman is the first book by Japanese author Sayaka Murata translated into English. It's an uncannily mesmerising little book (160 pages), describing the life of an outsider who is strangely enough, hiding in plain sight. Charles Bukowski's novel Post Office, about the author's experiences working at a post office, kept on running through my mind as I read this one. Both are books about outsiders who can't bring themselves to fit in, yet find their own little niches.
A neat little novel that strangely captures the essence, even the joy, of simply being yourself.
Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata. Published by Granta.
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