This book wasn't that, but it was interesting. I've literally never read a book by a Japanese author before, so maybe I don't have a good background to describe this. I guess it's like the The Jungle or The Grapes of Wrath was an edgy thriller about four women in 90s Japan. The characters have been ground down by globalized capitalism and other systems of exploitation until they are willing to do literally anything to escape their current lives. Eventually, they do escape in different ways, but the price is pretty high. Unlike those other two books, here's no socialist moralizing, but that kind of fits with the setting (I wonder what happened to Japanese Leftism in the 1950s...).

The start of this book hooked me with a vividly depressing account of lower middle class life, and the middle part was very exciting. I didn't like the ending very much, it managed to be unexpected, disturbing, and cliche all at the same time. At least things worked out for my favorite character.

What was really special about this book was the exploration of the experience of doing something horrific, but necessary. How would it actually feel, moment-to-moment, to have participated in incredibly gruesome violence? How would you cope? When, if ever, will it catch up with you, emotionally? I assume Natsuo Kirino has never chopped anybody into little pieces herself, but she is very, very good at imagining it.