Such a device is not new in contemporary fiction. Instead Murata uses her oddball narrator to deliver quips at an impressive rate about so-called normal social behaviour. Marx’s theories on work and alienation are beneath the surface of Keiko’s story, though the novel is never preachy on its themes. Crucially Keiko’s job gives her a function in society, the importance of which is highlighted in later chapters when she no longer works and suddenly finds little reason to get out of bed. She literally learns the language of her new tribe by imitating the speech patterns of her matronly supervisor Mrs Izumi, or the hip till assistant Sugawara, to great comic effect.
Keiko’s rebirth as a convenience store worker gives her structure and rules to follow – a blueprint for life. “What?” “Daddy likes yakitori, doesn’t he? Let’s grill it and have it for dinner!” Her penchant for mild sociopathy continues at school when she tries to help a teacher break up a fight between two boys by walloping one of them over the head with a shovel: “Everyone started screaming as he fell down clutching his skull.” Blueprint for life As a young child in a playground when all the other children are terrified by a dead bird, Keiko runs to her mother with a very public suggestion: “Let’s eat it!” I said. Murata writes with a deadpan humour in early scenes that have much fun depicting Keiko the outsider. Though her family and friends are aghast at this waste of her life and education, Keiko took the job upon leaving school as a way to be "reborn", to become "a normal cog in society". Convenience Store Woman tells the story of a 36-year-old social misfit who has worked for 18 years in a titular store in Tokyo. Irasshaimasé! The "stock greeting" to customers in Japanese convenience stores won't be familiar to most Irish readers, but by the end of Sayaka Murata's engaging debut novel we are so immersed in narrator Keiko Furukura's world we might expect to hear it in our local Spar.
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