Last week brought the news that North Korea has finally decided to give up their nuclear program in favor of something crazy, like not letting their citizens starve to death. The constantly-struggling nation struck a deal to give up nuclear production in exchange from massive aid from the United States. Still, who knows if the offer is sincere or a trick or if they duplicitous regime is giving up the program anyway because they can’t continue to fund it. More than that, what’s it really like to live in the most isolated country in the world?
The new novel “The Orphan Master’s Son” answers that question and then some. I have read a couple of non-fiction books about North Korea, but none of them can touch this novel in terms of scope, heart, and something I call “realistic surrealism.” North Korea is a place not unlike some skid row Oz or horrific Neverland, but it’s perhaps all the more interesting because it’s completely true.
This novel follows the tale of Jun Do—-a clever play on “John Doe” since this character really has no idea who he is in a country where the state robs people of their identity—-an Orphan Master’s Son who starts his career in North Korean intelligence as a not-so-professional kidnapper stealing citizens from Japan and South Korea. Right off the bat, the novel captures the way no one in North Korea, not even the spies, seem to have a clue what is really going on or who they can trust.
The narrative then flows from different adventures on a fishing boat, a diplomatic trip to Texas, a harrowing North Korean prison, and finally to the upper ranks of the military elite in Pyongyang. By the time “The Dear Leader” Kim Jong Ill shows up, we’ve fully gone down the rabbit hole. Fascinatingly, the book paints a totally different picture of Kim Jong Ill than the fool we’re used to seeing, as this Kim is equal parts crafty manipulator, childish bully, and lovesick tyrant. The result accurately gets you inside the psyche of a man with unlimited power leading a country where it’s a crime to so much as not have his picture on your wall.
But the heart of the book isn’t about “The Dear Leader” and all the suffering he’s put his people through. It’s about the suffering people themselves, struggling to stay alive in a dehumanizing state where paranoia runs rampant. Although the 450 page book is perhaps 100 pages too long, by the end of it I came to the conclusion that there is nowhere on Earth more hellish than a North Korean work prison. And it’s a true testament to this book that it can make such a place a riveting read.
Great book!