Convenience Store Woman

by Sayaka Murata

People innately want to believe they are unique. The alternative — that the differences between us are nearly indistinguishable — is too nihilistic for most people to bear. But through the lens of an emotionally detached protagonist, Japanese author Sayaka Murata’s debut English-language novel, Convenience Store Woman, calls into question everything we want to believe about ourselves.

A testament to Murata’s skill as a writer, Convenience Store Woman crafts a thoughtful narrative in the most mundane of settings. A 24-hour convenience store presents a dichotomy central to the book: on the one hand, there exists a constancy of such a store where “nothing ever seems to change,” and on the other, a place where everything inside is constantly replenished and replaced. And as its most devoted employee, Keiko Furukura sees both sides of the situation better than anyone else.     

To be sure, Keiko is strange. She doesn’t understand the complexity of emotions that other people experience, and she reacts to situations in ways that others find inappropriate and unsettling. She has always been this way, and although she concluded a long time ago that she always will be, her family still holds out hope that someday she will be “cured.” Keiko believes the only way she can function in society is to adopt what others consider to be “normal” characteristics — and her salvation presents itself at age 18 in the form of employment at a convenience store.

Hiiromachi Smile Mart provides the context in which Keiko can appear normal. Now 36 years old, she has become a full-fledged social chameleon, absorbing and adopting similar mannerisms and habits of her coworker contemporaries. The Smile Mart gives her a set of clear rules to follow that guide her social interactions. She sees herself as a store worker first and human second. She is proud to see herself as a small cog in a well-oiled machine. The store gives Keiko a newfound purpose and provides a role to play in society. The store is her religion and the employee manual her bible.

When a degenerate new hire disrupts her well-regulated world, Keiko is forced to confront the cracks in her painstakingly crafted façade. Facets of her constructed personality that were “normal” when she started at the convenience store no longer fall in that category — specifically, as a woman, her lack of a husband and her continued work at a dead-end job.

Although her unemotional, borderline sociopathy is an unsettling attribute for a protagonist, Keiko is uniquely placed to view the world with clear eyes. Without the tangled web of emotion that so often complicates human perception, Keiko becomes a literary tool for societal criticism.

The book’s poignancy is born of Keiko’s unbiased observations: Although we remain in the same body throughout our lives, we constantly adopt new traits – piecemeal – that we admire in other people. Are you truly unique? Where does one person end and another begin? She sees that gender norms force people — particularly women — into specific roles. And she experiences firsthand how society rejects those who exist outside the boundaries of conformity.

Convenience Store Woman is a small, short book that seems innocuous enough. But like the fictional Hiiromachi Smile Mart, it makes you question what you thought you knew about yourself and how deeply you are compelled to conform.