A Baby Timmy Book Review

Hi everybody. It's me Baby Timmy, the smartest baby in the world, and I'm back to give you a review of a novel I just finished. It's a Japanese crime novel written by a woman named Natsuo Kirino. and it's called "Out." Oh poop Dr. Monkerstein, just show them the cover.

Thanks.

Now this book has been out for sometime but I only just got around to reading it. What do you expect, I may be the world's smartest baby, but I still am a baby after all. Anyway, let's get on with the review:

This book is about a group of four women who work the night shift at a box lunch factory in Japan. One of the women, Yayoi, has a wayward husband who gambles and drinks away the family's money. When he comes home one night he and his wife argue and she ends up killing him. After she realizes that he is dead she is not quite horrified at the fact that she killed him but at the fact that she does not know what she is going to do with his body.

So she makes a call to one of the women she works with. Her friend, Masako, decides in a split second to help her and dispose of the body. Masako comes and picks the corpse up and takes it back to her house. There, along with the aid of two of the other women in their little group, the body of the wayward hubby is cut up and later disposed of. The book follows what happens as a result of this grisly action. Along the way to the pulse pounding shattering climax we meet low level Yakuza gangsters, illegal gambling club owners, Chinese bar girls, and others.

I won't tell you any more of what happens in the book because I do not want to spoil it for anyone who actually reads it later.

Over all this is a very good book. It is a eye opening picture of contemporary Japan and the cultural morays that pervade that island nation. It's also a fascinating portrait of these women who do a monstrous act and then try to struggle with the consequences of it. The author shows us just exactly what the old phrase 'the banality of evil' means in the lives of these women and those their lives intersect with.

I know full well that this novel is kind of grisly and due to the level of violence in it, it may not be everyone's 'cup of tea,' but I highly recommend it. It's not like an ordinary crime novel, it's in a different class all by itself.

I salute the author Natsuo Kirino and I salute the guy who translated it into English Stephen Snyder. She did a fabulous job coming up with the novel in the first place and he did a great job of translating this moody crime novel into English. My diaper is off to both of you.

Speaking of diapers, I got a full load, can someone change me?

Until next time, this is Baby Timmy, the smartest baby in the world, signing off and reminding you to keep your head full of knowledge and your diaper free of poo.

Adios amigos!