Convenience Store Woman

Posted by Verity on January 15, 2023 in Book review, Humour, Japan, Literature, Living today, society | 2 comments

Sayaka Murata, Granta

I’ve come rather late to the convenience store party, since this book was first published in English in 2018, but I would have been sorry to miss it completely.

At one level the book is a celebration of the world of the convenience store, that brightly-lit haven at the heart of every neighbourhood, in Tokyo as in any city in Britain. And who can sing its pleasures better than Keiko, who has been working in the same one for 18 years?

The book begins with a paean of praise to the ambient sounds of the convenience store, which Keiko can summon up at any time as a soothing mantra. The point later in the book when she realises that the sounds have ceased is a moment of real loss.

For the convenience store is the environment in which Keiko thrives. The shop, its customers and in particular her colleagues have taught her everything. Through copying her colleagues’ dress, facial expressions, and modes of speech she can pass as normal in the normal world.

More than that, she is good at her job, wholeheartedly committed both to offering customer service excellence and shifting units.  (It has to be said that, with its rice balls, freshly-cooked fried chicken skewers, and weird novelty items like mango chocolate buns, Keiko’s convenience store sounds a lot more appealing than our version of them.)

So Keiko is happy, comfortable and confident within her chosen niche. But this is not enough for her family and friends, who think she should have either a partner, or a high-powered job, or both. When her appalling co-worker Shiraha appears on the scene as the only available prospect in trousers, how can she withstand the pressure they pile on?

Although the term itself is never used, Keiko is clearly on the autistic spectrum, and her reactions to social situations often recall those of Elinor Oliphant. The first indication that she has a different take on the world comes early, when she and her nursery school chums find a dead bird in the playground.  While the other little ones are crying their eyes out for the poor creature, Keiko is wondering aloud why they can’t eat it. A couple more incidents during her school days confirm that she is someone who needs to be ‘cured’.

The convenience store provides that cure: an enclosed world whose rules are easy to learn, an outlet that channels slightly obsessive behaviour into productive attention to detail and customer-friendly self-discipline, and a useful parade of ‘normal people’ to take her cues from. I for one was persuaded, left feeling that there was nothing I’d like to do more than slip into the routine of a job that I had mastered completely.

Although the book has serious messages about the inanity and cruelty of society’s expectations that we should conform (expectations that are far stronger in Japanese society than here), Convenience Store Woman is also very funny, often because of Keiko’s robustly unsentimental reactions to events.  Uncertain as to how to respond to the sight of her sister weeping uncontrollably she ‘took a custard pudding out of the refrigerator and ate it as I watched her sitting there sobbing.’

You could do worse than spend three hours of in the company of Keiko, the most reliable of unreliable narrators.