A rich, artistic novel reveals a culture obscured and unknown.
A coming-of-age story set in North Korea’s fringe Chinese community uncovers a shocking world of art and tradition suppressed underneath the country’s disciplined veneer.
To the outside world, North Korea is a gray, choreographed nation, but even under such an oppressive regime, a surprising Chinese community exists within its borders. Mickey and his family are a part of this community, and while not an identity of privilege, it does afford advantages. Though frowned upon, sometimes even punished, there is tolerance for many to work as smugglers, bringing in outside luxuries while selling off pieces of the country’s history or, at the very least, convincing fakes. Mickey toils under a harsh mentor who trains him as an artist and a forger, but his passions lean harder toward the latter. Further igniting his imagination is a painted, antique copper snuff bottle, a family heirloom that has become a talisman to him. Its counterpart was spirited away by his grandmother Lily, who left North Korea for Moscow. The alluring mystery of Lily and the other bottle moves him to seek out greater freedoms as he studies art abroad. He also helps his brother Piggy in smuggling and faces the dangers of fools, assassins, and idealists. Kim’s debut reads as much like poetry as it does prose, Mickey’s travels and ebbing naiveté recalling the novels of Kerouac—though with far less whimsy and far greater consequence. Colorful digressions into his family’s history permeate but never distract from Mickey’s travels. Characters and their experiences, even outside of the protagonist’s plotline, matter. A foolish Western woman extolling the “hardiness” of North Korean socialism isn’t presented as just caricature, and a cruel rival from Mickey’s youth grows, unseen but believably, into a co-conspirator if not a friend. Most notably Mickey’s first love, Minsu, appears sporadically but offers a luckless story that could (and should!) be a novel unto itself, her hardships reminding readers that even Mickey’s journey is not as difficult as others’.
A rich, artistic novel reveals a culture obscured and unknown.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-909979-76-5
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Crux Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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