When Yayoi returns home one night, Kenji tells her that he has gambled all their savings away in a baccarat game.

Yayoi is a thirty-four-year-old mother of two small boys who she is forced to leave home alone, where they are abused by their drunken, gambling father, Kenji. Yoshie is a single mother and reluctant caretaker of her mother-in-law, who was left partly paralyzed after a stroke. Kuniko, a plump and rather vain girl, has recently been ditched by her boyfriend after the couple were driven into debt, leaving Kuniko to fend off a loan shark. Masako, the leader of the four women, feels completely alienated from her estranged husband and teenage son. The novel tells the tales of four women, working the graveyard shift at a Japanese bento factory.

According to Variety (on-line edition), New Line Cinema has purchased the rights for an American version, to be directed by Nakata Hideo ( Ring, Ring 2). The Japanese film adaptation of Out, directed by Hirayama Hideyuki, was released in 2002 to generally tepid reviews. The English translation was nominated for the 2004 Edgar Award for Best Novel. This novel is currently published by Vintage, part of Random House, in Britain and has been translated into English by Stephen Snyder. It is Kirino's first novel to be published in the English language. The novel won the 51st Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel. Out ( アウト) is a 1997 Japanese crime novel written by Japanese author Natsuo Karin and published in English in 2004.

Out novel natsuo kirino