Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman

By Sayaka Murata

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

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...

I was going to use this book for a happily single female protagonist but the plot of the book (such as it is) involves her getting together with a man in order to appease her family and co-workers. So I'm not entirely sure that either "happy" or "single" fit, since she is not really either. Except at the end, when she discovers that her true calling is working in a convenience store after all and leaves her ersatz boyfriend and job interview.

 

This was an interesting book, particularly at first, when we're getting the skinny on Furukura's life and all the ways she doesn't feel normal, but has found comfort and enjoyment in the rules and processes of working in her store.  

But her delicate peace is disturbed when a slacker, misogynistic co-worker is fired and she joins forces with him to find out if everyone would prefer that she "act" normal (i.e. have a boyfriend and have ambition) even if said boyfriend is a waste of space and clearly just a mooch taking advantage of her. And it turns out that people do prefer that! 

This part is where it goes off the rails a bit. It's clearly aiming for a satirical expose of the ways in which "performing" are more socially acceptable regardless of whether it's good for that person but Shiraha (aforementioned terrible co-worker) is obviously a dingbat, and everyone's reactions are so overblown (not one person is suspicious or concerned that Furukura has moved an unemployed misogynist into her bathroom and quit her job but instead immediately start inviting them both to drinks out) that it loses its impact by getting too cartoon-y too fast. 

I think the central premise is good and could offer a critique on societal expectations, but it feels like it could have been presented better. If for example we'd seen this scam develop over a longer period and get more and more involved as they see people buy in to it. Or if literally any one person was a little more skeptical, it might have felt more earned, more real. But instead it begins to feel thin and ridiculous. It also makes no sense that Furukura would be so intrigued by someone who is so terrible at working at the convenience store, which appears to be the only thing she values.

 

Luckily it's saved from complete failure by not dwelling too long on the relationship aspect of it and ending on the perfect note of Furukura realizing that the most important thing is her work in the convenience store, and she drops all pretense of a conventional life.

For some reason, maybe because of how Murata describes the store, it reminds me of the ending scene of House of Stairs, when the three brainwashed kids see a traffic light and start dancing, mindlessly, as they've been trained to do. You go on dancing your bad self to the light of the frozen foods section, Furukura.

 

 

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