Keiko has known since she was a little girl that she wasn’t quite normal. Her reactions were not like those of her peers, and they were different enough to cause her family alarm. Upon discovering a dead bird, her first thought was that it might be good for her father’s dinner: when one of her teachers was in an emotional uproar, Keiko addressed the situation by pulling down the teacher’s dress. So far, so quirky. It’s a little more disturbing when, annoyed by a crying baby, she ponders a nearby knife as a solution. Fortunately, Keiko has found a place where her strangeness is not disruptive: where her need for social scripts and routine is perfectly matched — the Convenience Store. There, she finds a literal manual for how to behave. There, she finds a consistent array of things that need to be done properly, with enough variety that she doesn’t lose interest. She is a perfect cog in the machine, and she lives and breathes its needs and atmosphere. There are converging factors, though, that will combine to disrupt her place: her age, for once, as she continually reflects on how the Convenience Store’s worker-cogs are replaced once they’ve worn down, just like unsold rice balls; her family’s continued prodding that she should really get a real job or at least a husband after eighteen years of the convenience store routine; and the final of an utterly obnoxious and soon-to-be-fired coworker who nonetheless prompts her to try something new. This is not, however, some predictable novel about love and inspiration. 

Given its length (scarcely over a hundred pages), I suppose it’s not saying much that I read this in one sitting. But perhaps it is saying something that I didn’t even bother to freshen my drink, or to go outside and have a look at the moon as I do when I’m reading at night and get restless just sitting. I read it in one go, utterly spellbound, and then I began listening to the audiobook version just to see what it had to offer. (Totally worth it. Not only did I get to hear the pronunciation of “Irasshaimase!”, which is a staple of the book, but the narrator Nancy Wu also portrays the difference between Keiko’s ‘real’ voice, the flat narrator, and her public voice, which was modeled on listening to her coworkers’ cadence and expression.) Although the novel’s blurbs and some reviews refer to this as comic, I don’t get that at all. For me, it was a thoroughly sympathetic and engaging account of a young woman whose brain is not set in the same mold as everyone else’s trying to be normal – in part so people will stop prodding at her to be normal. She doesn’t want to be an object of such interest and distress to her family. Because she doesn’t think or relate to people and the world around her the way that most do, she relies on acting to lower her profile and not be noticed: she labors to discern social scripts and follow them, she imitates the voices and emotions of those around her, and she relies on her sister for tips on what to say to avoid various lines of inquiry. She also thinks about society in a very abstract, detached way, which is one of the few things she has in common with a character who is otherwise an inexplicable connection for her. As obnoxious and abhorrent as he is, they’re both outsiders in their way. As mentioned, though, the novel does not settle for a nice ending, which I appreciated. This joins Ready Player One and Cold as Hell as books I had to experience in two mediums.

Convenience Store Woman was a fascinating little novel — tragic, sympathetic, and compelling.

Related:
Marian’s review @ Classics Considered