When I first started here, there was a detailed manual that taught me how to be a store worker, and I still don’t have a clue how to be a normal person outside that manual.
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
Keiko is stuck in a dead-end job. She works at a Smile Mart (a chain convenience store) in Japan. She has worked there since it opened eighteen years ago. She is an exemplary worker, showing up on her scheduled work days, always early. She works well with others and never makes any demands. She is most content when she is working. Restocking the cold drinks or reminding customers that corn dogs are on sale gives her a purpose, a way to fit in as one of the cogs in society.
Keiko never fit in. From an early age, she learned that her natural reactions to other people were bothersome at best and frightening at worst. She quickly learned to avoid unwanted attention by staying as quiet as possible and mimicking the reactions of those around her. Because of this fear, she never made any friends. Her parents and sister worried about her, but she pretended to be normal so they wouldn’t worry.
When a strange series of events leads her colleagues and her family to believe that she is dating someone, their exclamations of relief prove to her that she is, and has always been, abnormal in their eyes. All she wants is for it to go back to the way it was, where she was free to live her life as a convenience store worker. Now, everyone else’s expectations and advice forces her to conform in new uncomfortable ways.
Keiko is truly, wholly herself. She is an anthropologist who is always trying to understand how to fit in just enough so that she will not be openly shunned or labeled as ‘other.’ I got concerned when the book started to veer off in a troubling direction, but my worries were unwarranted. By the end, I was very happy with how Keiko’s story was resolved.
I’ve owned this novella for a while but it sat on my shelf for months before I finally sat down and devoured it over a couple of days. I lived in Japan and I miss the convenience stores (kohn-bee-nee) so, so much. It is truly exciting when a new one opens and you get to see all of the promotions and special items they offer.