Title: Convenience Store Woman
Author: Sayaka Murata
Published: 2018
Call #: AUDBK Murata / eBook
Keiko Furukura has always stood out, and not in a way you like to be noticed for. Her family always saw her differences and loved her more vigorously in hopes to “cure” her of the natural instincts she felt. For instance, when she found a dead bird in her childhood, instead of feeling sadness, she felt her family should have it for dinner. The way society expects someone to mature into adulthood and begin acting a certain way, and accomplishing certain milestones, has never seemed possible for Keiko.
Keiko gets a part-time job at a convenience store when she is 18. Now at 36, she is the only person who has been at the store since it opened. While the store is a revolving door of employees, now on manager #8, she is the one constant at the store. She has learned the vigorous and detailed expectations of a store worker are a way of life she can mimic perfectly. Her existence has become only for the store. She eats and sleeps so she is fit to work at the store. She has adopted the speech patterns of her coworkers so as to not stand out. Her goal is to be a well-oiled, perfectly fitting cog in the gears of day-to-day life. It is all working out perfectly, that is, until she starts to hear complaints from family and friends that she isn’t acting as a “useful” part of society in her current role. She either needs to get married or get a career.
This Japanese story explores the difference between meeting societal expectations and finding your real purpose. Sometimes, they are one in the same, but what if they’re not? Can someone be satisfied by purely going with the flow, seamlessly filling in a small gap, even if it is as a convenience store worker?
Erin I.
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