Convenience store woman
By: Sayaka Murata ; translated from the Japanese Ginny Tapley Takemori
Contributors: Takemori, Ginny Tapley, translator
Edition: First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 163
ISBN-13: 9780802128256
Subjects: Man-woman relationships; Social life and customers; Clerks (Retail trade); Fiction
Work titles: Konbini ningen
Description: Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers' style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person. However, eighteen years later, at age 36, she is still in the same job, has never had a boyfriend, and has only few friends. She feels comfortable in her life, but is aware that she is not living up to society's expectations and causing her family to worry about her. When a similarly alienated but cynical and bitter young man comes to work in the store, he will upset Keiko's contented stasis--but will it be for the better?
Notes: "A novel"--Jacket.

"Original published as Konbini ningen. Japanese edition published by Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo"--Title page verso.

In English, translated from the Japanese.