Supermarket: A Novel

By Satoshi Azuchi

When Kojima, an elite banker resigns from his job to help a cousin manage Ishiei, a supermarket in one of Japan's provincial cities, a host of problems ensue. Store employees are stealing products, the books are in disarray and the workers seem stuck in old ways of thinking.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312382944
• ISBN13: 9780312382940
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.2" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Is your produce fresh?

A novel about the grocery business in the Japan of forty years ago? Yes, that's the premise of this strangely enjoyable book. The surface story has shenanigans taking place in the fresh foods and clothing departments of one of Japan's new venture into 'supermarkets'. Our protagonist, Kojima, has taken the leap from banking to an industry he knows nothing about. We follow him and his fellow employees through several years as they try to turn a profit from this new type of store that they copied from America. Writing in a spare style, we learn only what we need to know to advance the story. I got the sense that the author and translator worked together to put this into English; and it resulted in a well written story. 'Supermarket' is a relaxing low key look at a section of Japanese life catching up with the west after the 1940's. Some of the underlying story is about moral and ethical issues that add depth to the book. This is definitely a book with a unique plot. I enjoyed it.

An insider's look at the supermarket phenomenon in postwar Japan

Inventory management, supplier negotiations, mispriced eggs--the everyday operations of a supermarket chain in 1970s Japan are the backbone of Satoshi Azuchi's surprisingly suspenseful and engaging novel. Initially published in Japan in 1981, Supermarket tells the story of Kôjima, a banker who, at the request of his cousin, undertakes a promising management role at Ishiei Stores--only to discover rampant corruption, simmering employee unrest, and a general manager who seems intent on hiding the truth. As expensive meat disappears from the shelves and bad inventory in the clothing department threatens to destroy the company, Kôjima struggles to transform not only the stores themselves but also the employees' attitudes toward their work--and the very culture of their business. Not every novelist could hit fictive blood and bone in the amortized value of real estate holdings and the challenge of making fresh produce profitable, but Azuchi weaves these industry nuts-and-bolts into a touching story about personal integrity, loyalty, and the nature and meaning of business in a rapidly changing Japan. From blood pacts to honor-keeping suicide, illicit flirtations to doctored accounts, Supermarket aptly portrays the very real people tending the aisles and hoping for progress in this particular time and place. Reviewed by Margo Orland Littell