David Yoon
I'm not out here trying to offer up hot takes. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning book after all, so if anything the fault is probably mine if this elicits a noncommittal shrug from me.
I'm supposed to effuse about how I'm in good hands with this cavalcade of characters that traipse across the page. Thomas Wazhashk, based on Louise Erdrich's own grandfather, the night watchman and Chippewa Council Member for the Turtle Mountain clan fighting against a government bill of “emancipation” His niece Patrice, working the factory setting jewels where she's caught the eyes of the white boxing coach Lloyd Barnes as well as the boxer he's training, Wood Mountain - who joins Patrice as she sets off into the city to find her lost sister Vera. There's the pair of Mormon's cursing the cold and trying to convert the Indigenous Lamanites while secretly loathing each other, and graduate student Millie Cloud come down to fight the bill on its way to Congress.
Not to mention the ghost of a dead boy, a waterjack, and a gun toting Puerto Rican nationalist. And yes, Erdrich does manage to give each their due and clearly delineate them on the page. But I still found it plodding with multiple strange digressions and meandering threads that are simply noted in passing.
Stories built up over pages are resolved with a sentence or two and set aside. Perhaps a nod to the direct way the Indigenous folks in the story simply note things as they are in plain spoken English in contrast to the flowery word-smithing of senators hiding daggers in their innocuous ten-dollar words, looking to “emancipate the Indian.” But I kept wanting more to grab onto here, something to warrant higher praise than “it was fine.”
White navel gazing targeting the woke liberal ally and arming them with the right words to announce to the world that they “get it” without the need for further action or smartly researched treatise on white fragility that deserves its place on any anti-racist syllabus? Yes.
For the Karens in your life that “don't see colour”, value “all lives”, has a cousin who married a black man, and “would have voted Obama for a third term if they could!” - this book is their anti-racism starter kit. The thing that gets them to examine their own privilege, but in the soothing tones of a white lady educator. And really, that's what some folks need.
If only so we can stop with the arguments that start with variations on the theme of “you're being too sensitive” “can't you take a joke”, “that was never my intent”, “the PC-police and cancel culture are getting out of hand” etc. We've turned the term racist into something that an individual does consciously with malicious intent, directed at another based on their race. So essentially a bad person. And it's gotten to the point being called a racist is somehow worse than being the victim of racism. It should carry all the weight of being called an asshole. Maybe you did something asshole-like. Maybe you should apologize and not do that asshole thing again instead of spending all your time invalidating the person who called you an asshole and whining about how your asshole behaviour was all a big mistake. People are not protesting for the right to call you an asshole.
So if you come out of this with the understanding that we are living within a complex racist system that permeates all aspects of our lives and that we're part of an enduring social dynamic that has privileged whites in regards to education, health-care, housing, banking, representation, policing etc for centuries that's good. And then maybe we can stop being such little snowflakes when we're called out on our racist behaviours. And then maybe we can start having productive conversations about this because I get the feeling Blacks are frankly done calling us out and trying to teach us to be better.
It's a start and hopefully one that leads to deeper reading and an invitation to actual anti-racist action and change instead of just checking off a box on your #blacklivesmatter bingo card.
It's a CanLit Hallmark movie which means a lot more cussing, smoking and the looming spectre of death. Toronto wannabe returns to her rural roots in Cape Breton after she finds her fiance inappropriately entwined with his boss. And so Stacey Fortune, or Crow as she's know back home, finds herself back in her mother's old trailer facing her all too imminent demise thanks to a mass of brain tumours she's nicknamed R Parry Homunculus, Ziggy Stardust, and Fuzzy Wuzzy.
And so we have a foul-mouthed diarist with nothing to lose recounting the last days of her life in the tenor of someone who grew up in the 80's where you could have acquaintances you'd refer to as Willy Gimp, Becky Chickenshit, Duke the Puke and Skroink. It reads like a Canadian made dramedy - less thoughtful interiority and more eclectic small town characters chewing up the scenery like the unhinged tree talking prognosticator and the straight from central casting wealthy villainess. It's Anne of Green Gables meets Trailer Park Boys - pretty broad but entirely winning nonetheless.
Long ago the natives known as Green Bones defended their island nation of Kekon from foreign occupation. They were imbued with the magical properties of the local jade which granted warriors incredible capabilities across six disciplines known as strength, steel, perception, lightness, deflection, and channelling. But brandishing these skills demands a delicate balance requiring intense training. More jade means greater power, but too much can destroy minds and bodies.
In war the families fought side by side but in peace the city of Janloon is controlled by the No Peak Clan and the Mountain Clan. War heroes become profiteering mobsters holding down their territories against each other. It's a Far East Mob Novel as we focus on the incoming generation of Kaul's taking the reins of the city and pushing up against the ruthlessly ambitious Ayt Madashi.
And while the first book manages to do a lot of world building, introducing us to the strict clan hierarchies of Pillar, Weather Man, Horn, Luckbringers and Fists and a sprawling tapestry of characters it never lags. Lots of turns, fights and drama that sets the stage so you can see how it will evolve over subsequent books in the trilogy. Engrossing and fun.
Two weeks after four LAPD officers were caught on camera “arresting” Rodney King, 15 year old Latasha Harlins is shot at point blank range by Korean store owner Soon Ja Du, her death captured on grainy convenience store footage.
It's the inspiration for what Steph Cha calls her social crime novel. Here, Ava Matthew is likewise shot by a Korean shopkeeper. 30 years later, Ava's brother Shawn is trying to move past the tragedy and lives a quiet live in Palmdale working as a mover. Their cousin Ray is just out of prison after a 10 year stint for armed robbery with a toy gun. Their lives are about to collide with Grace Park.
It's a story about processing grief and the possibility of grace. How people work through a tragedy in the moments after and how it lingers decades later. Even now one can see it preface #BlackLiveMatter and echo the LA riots in Watts almost 30 years prior. A powerful read. If you're looking for context, the National Geographic documentary “LA 92”, that is comprised completely of footage from that era, is incredibly good. As well, the YouTube documentary “Sa I Gu” that focuses on the Korean women whose lives were irrevocably changed in the aftermath of the riots is equally wrenching.
Full review here: https://youtu.be/OMZOBskPA4c
I don't know if I fully get this story. There seems to be no shortage of threads you could tug at to reveal something deeper. There is the repeated theme of language pushed past the point of understanding, dissolving into near gibberish, incapable of imparting any sort of understanding. Is that a reflection of our current political discourse or the acceleration of information through social media dissolving into noise? How about testosterone filled teenaged boys living in the white affluence of the 90's affecting gangster poses while singing along to hardcore hiphop, the simmering anger lying just underneath the surface. Maybe it's just auto-fiction, the story of a Kansas poet being raised by two psychologist parents, Lerner's mother notably famous in her field.
What I do know is that I'd read Lerner writing about his experience walking to the local CVS. Citing these diverse themes makes it seem like it's heavy literary fiction that needs deep analysis to understand when it's just an incredibly good read. Lerner's got a poet's ear for language and an assured sense of his subjects. Can't wait to check out more from him.
So this unbroken, stream of consciousness, chonker of a book that suffers from an extreme case of literary Tourettes (Kleenex, tardigrades, fatbergs, Abominable Snowman) can seem a massive bit of writerly trolling. Lucy Ellmann going Emperor's New Clothes as she continues to collect accolades and prizes. But I loved it nonetheless.
Clickbait tiles, brandnames, song snippets and the contents of the freezer are the manifestation of the monkey chatter, interior monologue that all of us are barely conscious of. Like skimming through the radio dial and picking up pieces of information, it firmly establishes the set and setting of a specific moment. It's no less than what T.S. Eliot is throwing out there in The Wasteland.
And we are completely in the world of an Ohio housewife in the year immediately after the 2016 US election. And yes, reading it in the current dumpster fire, murder hornets, pandemic, race riot moment seems almost quaint. But amidst the word salad there are thoughts on being a woman in this environment, a mother, wife and daughter. Feeling both completely invisible and an object of desire. To have beaten cancer but still contending with the medical bills. To harken to an idealized American ideal as seen in Little House on the Prairie, musicals, movies and the dog whistling of the president. How problematic that era was and how white racial structures have always been a part of the water white Americans have been swimming in. I mean you can fit a lot of ideas in 1000 pages.
And kudos to whoever was saddled with performing the audiobook version of this monster. I hope you got hazard pay.
With incredible resolve, Samra Habib ably navigates leaving her troubled Pakistan, complies with an arranged marriage, immigrates to Canada, and discovers her own queer identity. Despite all that she has endured from such a young age, she still has space in her heart for understanding and grace. And even the capacity to build something from her own experiences.
It is an important book that offers representation for those struggling to define their own identity within the confines of their faith and culture. Samra offers hope that there is a way to balance the two, that becoming her own queer self doesn't mean she still can't embrace and celebrate her faith. To that end there is a truly beautiful moment when she finds sanctuary at Toronto's Unity Mosque where she is free to be queer and Muslim.
For me though, it felt like there were no stakes in this and I find myself struggling to recall the narrative even a few weeks later but I'm still glad this book exists out in the world.
Translated from Bengali, the translation from Tilted Axis offers up a prologue on the idea of “niyoti” which is simply translated as fate in the novel. In India however it carries a lot more nuance. It is both the absence of agency but can also imply a state where the individual is merely under the illusion of being bound to their particular path.
So we find ourselves in Calcutta where we meet Homi, a hard-driving TV producer one year married to her equally successful husband, when she is approached by a ragged old yogi she perceives as her fate. Visible only to her, she finds in him a strange attraction and disgust. Homi then meets with a palmist and heeding his vague pronouncements nopes out of her middle class life surrounded by selfish climbers. It's fate! Or maybe it's a justification for abdicating from her mounting responsibilities.
We've even got a bit of a fairytale ending complete with a beneficent godmother courtesan. We leave Homi to choose whether to embrace her fate, or is she just f**king with it. Either way I enjoyed this modern day fable dripping with metaphor and a slightly hallucinogenic glaze.
Two rival agents slipping through time, snipping errant histories, nudging specific events forward that will blossom in significance, eradicating entire civilizations to better braid a multi-threaded universe, all in the hopes of cultivating a more ideal future.
They are the best of their respective worlds. Red exists for the Agency, a post-singularity, technocratic world while Blue fights for the Garden, a verdant utopia. As their actions intersect through time, pushing and pulling against each other to better order the universe to their side, they begin to admit a begrudging warrior's respect for the other's skill.
A respect that soon blossoms into something more. Co-written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone who would write to each other much like Red and Blue. One would fashion the letter the other creating the circumstances that the letter would be read. Elaborate intricacies, words hidden in knots, bee stings, the rings of trees and carved on an undigested piece of cod amidst the viscera of a clubbed seal.
It is a testament to their writing that I was more interested in how this love progressed than the intricacies of a time war. And an achievement that a time tossed love story could end in a way that felt earned and satisfactory.
It's a confidently smart collection of essays informed by a lifetime on writing on the internet. Which is to say a traditional collection of literary essays feels a bit one directional, the author invoking their well-researched thesis and disseminating it outward. Mic drop and move on. But on the internet, especially I imagine for a woman of colour with an opinion, there's an almost immediate response. Mansplaining in the comments, hot takes, internet trolls, the occasional nuanced rebuttal, emojis, gifs and tangental conversations as a result. (Kidding, nuanced rebuttals don't exist online)
And so there's an understanding that it's a journey. That the essay isn't the end of the conversation and Tolentino is writing her discovery in the moment. She's building toward understanding. She's learned to, as she puts it, “suspend my desire for conclusion.”
Academic noodling shored up by personal experience working towards a better understanding and Tolentino is our guide hacking through the underbrush of the internet, scammers, barre classes, reality TV and the wedding industrial complex. It's writing acutely aware of the current moment we're living in.
It's a dreamy collection of short stories that have completely slipped my mind. It's only been a week or so since I've finished and they're gone. There's nothing here to latch onto - completely elusive and ephemeral. Even murder is flattened in the telling. I had to return to the book and flip through the chapters to remember each story and already they're slipping away. It's frustratingly magical how these stories refuse to leave any sort of impression on me.
It's a wonderfully wonky meta narrative incorporating phone transcripts, online clippings, extensive interviews and psychological assessments, interspersed among detective noir, literary fiction, gonzo journalism and biography creating a nesting Matryoshka doll of a story that extends outward beyond Daniel James the biographer to an anonymous curator who extensively footnotes the collection and even spills out into our world with the Maas Foundation website and its ever vigilant Twitter account.
It's the literary equivalent of a late night internet rabbit hole where you start out looking to rebalance your dryer and end up realizing the Large Hadron Collider is actually a trans-dimensional portal intended to awaken Osiris the Egyptian God of Death but has been repeatedly thwarted by time travellers desperate to sabotage the effort. The story ducks into dark alleyways, spirals into philosophical tangents, name drops effusively, and invokes quantum mechanics. It is a post-truth, internet enabled conspiracy of a novel.
Ezra Maas has been wiped from our collective memory. A seminal figure in the New York art scene of the 70's, a contemporary of Thomas Pynchon and Hunter S. Thompson, the artistic precursor to Banksy and Shepard Fairey, his works have been systematically and rigorously extricated from the public eye. Daniel James is out to uncover the truth despite the best efforts of the shadowy Maas Foundation.
I will quibble with the overzealous footnoter constantly pulling us away from the main narrative to less than helpfully inform us that Umberto Eco is an Italian novelist and philosopher and that the Oststrand can be found on the banks of the river Spree in Berlin as if he's embedded Wikipedia searches into the story. But I can still applaud the sheer, swing for the fences, commitment to the bit, overflowing into the world of social media and the attempt to manufacture a Mandela effect in regards to the enigmatic Ezra Maas. That is some next level marketing hustle paired with a page-turner of a read.
David Sedaris, in a brief aside between readings at his Toronto show, gushed over the writing in this book. Then I see it heralded by GQ as one of the 21st century books every man should read, joining the likes of The Corrections, The Road, Cloud Atlas and The Namesake (it doesn't hurt that Wells Tower is a frequent contributor to GQ) It was only a matter of time before I picked this book up.
Wells just drops you into the story hard and you're left to pull the pieces together while he barrels ahead with his muscular prose. He's got this uncanny knack of just zeroing in on the right piece of information that lays out an entire scene, exposes an individual completely for you.
Not all the stories are out of the park but each one has perfect little moments. And vikings!
A horror novel set in a prestigious MFA program with a distinct Heathers vibe is one hell of a hand sell. But I just can't resolve that this bunny coven is comprised of grad students. These squealing mean girls with their ski jump noses and peach fuzz cheeks endlessly hugging and filled with mutual adoration feel like they're pulled from CW central casting for the latest high school drama. The Plastics with literary pretensions set their eyes on outsider Samantha Heather Mackey and are determined to bring her into their Care Bear coven where horror quickly ensues.
It's grindhouse fables and ancient myth meets Alice in Wonderland by way of Riverdale High. It's shitty first drafts and killing your darlings. It starts to feel like it's comprised entirely of metaphors both literary and authorial and ends up so far up its own asshole that it needs to unzip just to be heard. The thing is bonkers sure, but I wanted more of the fun of a teen horror flick and less meta commentary about the MFA process. Still, lots of literary bingo to be had picking out the varied references scattered throughout.
I loved this activist, anti-capitalist book wrapped in a disarming, self-help floral cover. It's consolidating a lot of what I've been reading lately that's been a reaction to our always online hustle culture.
Time is money and it's gone well beyond #girlbossing, the grind, and side hustles — expanding the boundaries of our work life. It's the fact that for many of us, every waking moment sees us building our personal brands, submitting our leisure time for numerical evaluation via likes, comments and views. We're constantly checking in on our performance and monitoring the value of our personal brand. Even self-care is framed in terms of returning to work replenished, to optimize ourselves to do more.
It's not like stepping away is going to be easy. History is scattered with the remains of those that felt they could escape the grind. Turn on, tune in, and drop out. Odell has us consider the work of maintenance, disrupting the attention economy and escaping its pervasive framework. To listen, reflect, heal, and repair ourselves. Stupidity is never blind or mute. Maybe holster that hot take, touch grass, and do the work of doing nothing.
Lillian Breaker doesn't have a lot going on. She's working two cashier jobs and smoking weed in the attic of her mother's house. So it's not like she's going to say no when an old friend reaches out for her help. Especially considering how ridiculously wealthy said friend is. What's even better is the favour amounts to taking care of 10 year old twins who just happen to spontaneously combust.
There are tropes aplenty that stretch the bounds of reasonable believability. Of course outsider Lillian would befriend upper crust Madison. That a shared love of basketball is enough to bridge a massive class divide and maintain a long distance friendship over the years. That Lillian taking the fall for Madison and getting expelled from school, dashing any hope of reaching escape velocity from her fabulously crappy life, isn't enough to dent this bond. Meanwhile, Madison, still incredibly rich, has married a senator with aspirations to the presidency. I mean this what your teen movie nemesis origin story looks like, this is how you play up the villain not how you set up Lillian to start babysitting Madison's husband's little fire children.
But then I'm warmed by Lillian with the kids. I mean none of us are truly up to the task of raising children and are bound to fail miserably in countless ways everyday. Children are incredibly unstable and volatile things prone to violent outbursts and flaming tirades. But at the same time “Maybe raising children was just giving them the things you loved most in the world and hoping that they loved them, too.” That it takes nothing to be a parent but everything to try and be a good one.
But then this is all blunted by the fact that raising children is perhaps easier when it comes with a perfect little cottage to call one's own, filled with books, toys and access to any number of servants, a pool, basketball court and anything else money can buy. I get it, money a good parent does not make, but boy does a generous sprinkling of it make everything better.
Closing out my home gardening trifecta with the most woo-woo of the bunch. It's less a book about caring for your new houseplant and more a way to readjust your thinking of our chlorophyllic compatriots. There are the heartfelt testimonials of plant owners pulled from the depths of depression and overcoming personal challenges with the help of plants. And each chapter ends with a mindful practice, perhaps consider how your attitude towards plants has changed as you've matured. And I expected what exactly from an author named Summer Rayne Oakes?
Dammit Summer, I just want to know if I'm overwatering my pilea peperomioides! She does get points for being published under Simon Sinek's imprint and getting the one and only OG botanical-bro Wade Davis to provide the intro. I enjoyed her investigation of the greening of Singapore, the long and ancient history of indoor gardening and identifying geosmin, the smell of earth. Less so the references to her Masterclass I should take to get the answers I was looking for in the first place. But hell, you gotta hustle out here when it comes to houseplants I guess.
Man this was a trip.
Yona Kim works for a Korean company called Jungle that curates inclusive holiday packages to disaster zones. She's been there for 10 years but is feeling like something has changed, that her position within the organization has subtly shifted. When she is sexually harassed several times by a fellow co-worker, who perhaps senses her diminished standing, we expect a certain type of book. But Yona isn't interested in joining her voice with the victims, with aligning with what she considers the losers. The incident becomes a launching off point to her taking an extended leave to a disaster destination called Mui.
Tribal slaughter to make the tourists shudder and a massive sinkhole - now a wide lake - to excite their imagination. The guests occupy beachfront bungalows with crisp white sheets, rose petals by the bath, a single guest consuming more water than an entire village. They are trundled out to witness the poverty of the locals with a scheduled day for altruistic labour in digging a well. But again, Yun Ko-eun has bigger plans than an indictment of Instatravel and white-knighting voluntourism.
Improbably separated from the rest of her tour and left behind, Yona sees what happens in the off season and finds herself having to justify a strange calculus of lives. (Pandemic economics anyone?) A massive, faceless corporation named Paul that despite it's humanizing name seems inevitable in its forward progress of business, widely distributed across thousands of people that are “just doing their job” harbouring no personal malice or ill will and yet inevitably streamrolling over anything and anyone that gets in their way.
And then, as if unable to support the massive weight of so much metaphor it has heaped upon us, The Disaster Tourist veers off into Kaufmanesque territory and embeds a meta lovestory amidst a fabricated disaster. It's a lot. Sacrilege to say but I think this would be even better as a TV serialization. This thing reads like a tight one season story arc filled with rich possibility and knowing winks. This thing could become even more scathing, hilarious and plaintive if given some real space to breathe.
“What were you to my father?”
Well it was the summer of 1940...
And Vivian Morris, as is typical of seniors everywhere, goes back 70 years and proceeds to completely ignore the question and talk entirely about herself. In fact she'll spend 3/4 of the book reminiscing before the aforementioned father really enters the story. Hell, I completely forgot that was the motivating question that kicks this whole thing off.
Narrative framework aside, Vivian Morris arrives in New York City a wide-eyed 19 year old after getting bounced from Vassar. She's been sent packing to her Aunt Peg and her run down midtown Manhattan theatre called The Lily Playhouse. Strictly working class clientele paying with loose change to watch hack musicals but it was love at first site for Vivian and her trusty sewing machine.
From there we are immersed in 1940's New York. Gilbert hits us with lingo of the time, with a kiddo here and a baby doll there. And a colourful cast of characters from the drop dead gorgeous showgirl Cellia Ray, the rough and tumble Anthony Roccella, and the theatrical grand dame Edna Parker Watson.
This was just a fun read. Vivian sets out to paint the town, have fun and make mistakes. Youth is not wasted on her even as she is repeatedly wrestled back into the tiny space that society would have her occupy. Its insistence that she satisfy herself with a quiet, acceptable narrative. We do finally get to the aforementioned father which provides an unexpected grace note to the entire story that I loved just as much, if not more, as her youthful escapades in New York.
Elwood Curtis works hard, plays by the rules and gets good grades. He's filled to the brim with the speeches of Martin Luther King advocating for love in the face of oppression. And yet, on his way to attending college, gets in the wrong car. The driver is essentially pulled over for driving while black and Elwood - guilty by association - is sent to Nickel Academy.
Playing by the rules and doing right gets you nowhere. Elwood is left scarred after trying to break up a fight. His black body is sold out as labour to the townsfolk - Elwood painting a gazebo Dixie White. His food is sold off to restaurants and grocery stores. And yet King's words reverberate in his head “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”
Meanwhile Turner, Elwood's friend at Nickel, has a different view. It's about hustle and reliance on the self alone. Seeing how things are run and running around them. He knows a single misstep could mean disappearing out back. Disappearing for good.
It is those two ideas that face off in how to be in the world and how there often is no clear answer.
This was 20 years in the making after inspiration struck peering into an actual Clyde Fans shop window in downtown Toronto. There past the dusty desks, rotary phones and old fans were the black and white photographs of two middle aged men looking back at author Seth. And here the rich imaginings of their lives.
It can feel at once like the limp whining of white privilege, the benefactors of generational wealth reminiscing about how it used to be, veering dangerously close to every bigoted uncle holding court at Thanksgiving or otherwise spewing nonsense on Facebook. Simon, after a disastrous attempt at sales in the field, is able to retreat back to the family home and bide his time collecting vintage postcards and conversing with his collection of mildly racist knick-knacks. His brother Abe opens the book, monologuing like a Southern Ontario Willy Loman for a good 70 pages.
But it is a story of the death of mid-century capitalism and locality as well. About our industrious town, and many like it, of meat-packers, tire manufacturing and parts factories. The days of raising a family, buying a home, sending the kids to school while socking money for retirement thanks to these jobs on the line have long disappeared. Now we're home to code jockeys, scrum masters and agile sprints. The small shops handed down for generations have slowly disappeared as sales move to big box stores sitting on acres of property and online retailers with next day delivery. Something has been lost as a result.
Maybe this recognition comes from my own middle age - I recognize the factories rendered here on the page and how, even laying empty when I was a child, still managed to invoke something. It's that melancholic remembering of things, the ineffable dream that can be weaponized as a call to wanting to be Great Again but just as much a nostalgia for a strong middle class and community that didn't hide behind mouse clicks and refreshed browser screens.
Green Valley is a plugged-in, autonomous virtual community sequestered behind concrete walls. It's a technological paradise surrounded on all sides by the community of Stanton who have turned their back on digital technology.
Of course the story is bound to be a cautionary metaphor for the dangers of our increasingly online world as we escape further into our carefully curated bubbles to avoid the messiness of the real world. But I was not ready for the third act turn toward horror. I should have suspected when children begin showing up dead in Stanton which prompts Lucie Sterling to investigate, driven by her need to know if her niece is ok.
The setup is all there but I still struggled with the world building. There's a lot of handwaving to create the story's conditions and I found the writing a bit clunky as the author moved characters around the board. I could sense the taut thriller this might have been given some judicious editing.
“I've never known happiness from the moment I came out of my mother's womb” Lee Ok-Sun, now an octogenarian living out her days in the House of Sharing can hardly be blamed for that sentiment. Still active, still advocating for the rights of comfort women, still able to recall the horrors visited upon her. Snatched up on the road to the market at age 15 and shipped off to the Chinese province of Yanji, Lee Ok-Sun became a comfort woman - essentially a sex slave forced to service the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII in a massive, state sanctioned, human trafficking operation.
This is all told as Gendry-Kim coaxes the story from Lee Ok-Sun in the present day, offering at least something to anchor yourself to, knowing that Ok-Sun survived. But Gendry-Kim does not shy away from the horrors of her time in captivity and presents them in a blunt tone accompanied by stark images. Even as Japan surrendered, the plight of these women did not cease and Ok-Sun would have to endure so much more even in freedom.
Today the Japanese government, despite issuing numerous apologies, still avoids any mention of women being taken against their will. Some lawmakers go as far as recounting stories from Japanese soldiers who were adamant the comfort women thanked them for the chance to send money back home. The Japanese government continues to fight strongly against activist efforts to support and recognize these women. Lee Ok-Sun continues to demand that she and her ilk be recognized.
This graphic novel packs a massive punch and tells the story of one comfort women and her lived experience. Incredibly done, beautifully translated by Janet Hong with some astonishing artwork reminiscent of traditional ink brush painting, this is a powerful work that should be read.
Bro! Hardly fucked by Fate, but rather hashtag blessed for this translation that gives zero shits. Our swole, sword bearing, son-of-a-bitch comes out swinging. Beowulf brings the beatdown, batters beasts, and bests the bringers of blood. Raring to be read aloud, voice raised over the roar of revelry. The song of sweaty soldiers with back slapping swagger who swear on the sword they saw it true. Headley is hard-core, heroic and hardly one to haver, hell-bent on hewing her own history here. Too much? Truly it is a touch too far at times but still a towering testament to her talent.
Beowulf rode hard. He stayed thirsty! He was the Man! He was the man.