Convenience Store Woman Commentary
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Unsettling and deeply profound, this concise, not-quite-horror book, Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata follows Keiko, a 36 year old convenience store worker, through a 24-7, living, breathing ecosystem, where she both finds her identity and then begins to question it as well as her role in Tokyo society. An entrancing read, Convenience Store Woman is about performing normalcy, reaching or evading society’s expectations, being human, and the satisfaction of a clear role. A bite-sized, slice of life story with an intriguing, unusual protagonist, this short novel absorbed my attention for a whole afternoon. When I finally looked up from the page, I’d nearly finished!
Keiko is both trapped by and in love with her work environment at Smile Mart. Having worked at the store since it’s opening, Keiko knows intimately the inner workings of the store: product deliveries, lunch and dinner rushes, promotions and specials, how the weather will affect sales, who the regulars are, and on and on. Her body is even in sync with the store, her instrument for providing what the store needs, which she can hear and feel intuitively. Her bosses love her work ethic and praise her for never being late or taking days off. But, despite being a perfect employee, she isn’t succeeding enough in the eyes of society, her family, and friends. She is seen as strange and pitied, though Keiko herself is quite content with her life. Because she isn’t “normal”, she must be “cured”— an ongoing effort since childhood.
We are introduced to Keiko as a child, who struggles to interact “normally” with other people. In primary school, a few kids were fighting, and, in the commotion, Keiko grabbed a spade and hit one of the boys over the head with it. When she got in trouble, Keiko didn’t understand what she did wrong, thinking it was the quickest way to get the boys to stop fighting. Many incidents like this reveal that Keiko is different not just from other kids, but her own family, too. Everyone just wants her to be “normal.”
“My parents were at a loss what to do about me, but they were as affectionate to me as ever. I’d never meant to make them sad or have to keep apologizing for things I did, so I decided to keep my mouth shut as best I could outside the home. I would no longer do anything of my own accord, and would either just mimic what everyone else was doing, or simply follow instructions.”
The convenience store, much more so than her parents, teaches Keiko how to be a person. In the store, there are clear rules and instructions, clear expectations. When Keiko knows what to do, she does it.
“I was good at mimicking the trainer’s examples and the model video he’d shown us in the back room. It was the first time anyone had ever taught me how to accomplish a normal facial expression and manner of speech.”
She thrives there. Soon, the store hires a new worker, Shiraha, who is terrible at the job and is quickly fired. Keiko and a few other employees are talking in the backroom about him.
“A dead-ender. The worst type, just a burden on society. People have a duty to fulfill their role in society either through the workplace or family.”
Here, Keiko is reminded of the rules she is expected to follow and is currently breaking as a single woman working a part time job. Her sister and friends want her to find a man and get married. She knows she must follow the rules or risk being shunned.
“The normal world has no room for exceptions and always quietly eliminates foreign objects. Anyone who is lacking is disposed of.”
Suddenly Shiraha transforms from a shitty coworker into an opportunity. Feeling no desire to actually be in a relationship or interact sexually with anyone, Keiko proposes to Shiraha an idea: Let’s live together and pretend to be married so that society will leave us alone. Shiraha often waxes on about how society has not changed since the Stone Age. Men go out and hunt and provide, and women bear children. But he has thus far failed at finding and holding a job. His resentment has boiled into an isolationist mentality. All he wants in the world is to be left alone just to exist until he dies. Keiko can provide him a home and “feed” as she calls it (seeing him as more of a pet than a boyfriend), and he can provide her societal cover.
When Keiko next visits her sister, she tells her about Shiraha and her sister is so happy. Keiko begins to realize that maybe Shiraha is right about the Stone Age.
“Seeing how excited she was, it occurred to me that it wasn’t such a stretch to say that contemporary society was still stuck in the Stone Age after all. So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an ordinary person had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realized.”
But, eventually, even this development doesn’t save Keiko. When her sister next comes to visit, her sister complains about Keiko still working at the convenience store. Upset and crying, her sister is inconsolable until Shiraha appears and performs the role of boyfriend, albeit a shitty one. No longer crying, her sister launches into Shiraha, and, though angry, seems much more pleased.
“She’s far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality— however messy— is far more comprehensible.”
But her sister mentions quitting the store and finding a real job. Trusting her sister, Keiko follows through and quits, and begins a long process of applying for other jobs. However, separated from the store, Keiko’s body flails for its own normalcy. She sleeps all day, she eats when she wakes up, and can barely function. When Keiko goes to an interview for a job, she and Shiraha stop at another convenience store, and Keiko immediately starts cleaning up the displays and giving employees tips. In the warm embrace of a familiar place, Keiko comes to the decision to bail on the interview and find another job at a convenience store. This is where she belongs. She breaks the arrangement with Shiraha and devotes herself again to her own sense of normalcy. Though it’s unclear, the reader feels that Keiko has steeled herself against future intrusions by society. She knows her place.
Keiko’s oddness and her outsider status felt relatable to me. Though I am married, I’m not traditionally employed and I am childfree, which to some makes me a weirdo. A recluse, a heretic. The strange and unusual appeal to me. As Beetlejuice’s Lydia Deetz famously said, “I myself am strange and unusual.” (I’m one of those crazy, childfree cat ladies J.D Vance is so scared of.) The threat of Keiko’s shunning pulled at my anxiety, and her rejection of being normal in the end brought a smile to my face. I celebrate her liberation in part because of how cruel those around her tend to be.
Keiko meets Shiraha’s relative, a sister in law, who loans Shiraha money often and sees him as a failure. Keiko speaks with her over the phone and genuinely asks if she thinks she should “mate” with Shiraha and have children. His sister in law is enraged.
“Give me a break! How do you think a store worker and an unemployed good-for-nothing are going to be able to raise children? Please don’t even consider it. You’ll be doing us all a favor by not leaving your genes behind. That’s the best contribution to the human race you could make.”
Rather than hurt, Keiko is pleased that the sister in law is able to speak so plainly and “rationally”. All Keiko wants is instruction. But, to me the reader, the sister in law’s response hurt, reminding me of how many in the world see people like Keiko and people like me. This is both a hurtful and freeing sensation; I’ll never fit in, just like Keiko will never fit in. But that makes us free.
Having been a convenience store employee, Sayaka Murata writes with a plain clarity that’s both astounding and genuine. An embrace of weirdness, Convenience Store Woman is a firm reminder of what’s expected with an at times comical tone in the face of dead seriousness. Should. Must. This is a book of shoulds with a “no” message. Hold tight to the no, and run wild.