The Orphan Masters Son - Adam Johnson

“When the dogs returned, the Senator gave them treats from his pocket, and Jun Do understood that in communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.”


Plot:  Jun Do, a North Korean, learns early in life how to survive in a difficult place to live.  Through perseverance, smarts, and luck, he rises up through the spy ranks, only to be thrown into a hellish prison under murky circumstances.  Miraculously he emerges from the prison a new man and manages to befriend and become a rival to, Kim Jong-Il.


Why read it?:  Fiction about North Korea is rare, especially good fiction.  You can spend hours reading between the lines, as there will be many instances in which you find yourself scratching your head about what just transpired in a world of doublespeak.  Also, the love story between Jun Do and Ga makes the book worth reading on its own.

 

I certainly have no idea what life is actually like in North Korea, but Adam Johnson presents it here in a way that at least seems possible, while running his protagonist, Jun Do, through a series of incredible adventures(?) nightmares(?).  The idea of identity runs throughout this book, which makes sense when it is set in a country where all individual identity has been essentially used by its leader Kim Jon Il.  It’s a place where in order to do anything beyond merely survive, one must prove themselves indispensable, but by becoming indispensable, one then becomes a target, because only the leader is truly indispensable.  Identity is more a matter of who you want or need to be, as opposed to who you may really be.  Jun Do manages to figure this out, and thus becomes Kim’s rival.

Jun Do, unlike most North Koreans, actually gets to travel a bit, but it’s not your everyday travel.  Early on, he participates in kidnapping raids to Japan, later finds work as a spy on a rickety North Korean fishing/spy ship that has an odd encounter with a US Navy vessel, and then gets to be a part of a quixotic diplomatic trip to Texas.  As a reward, he ends up in a prison that one assumes people rarely come out of.  But Jun Do does, but that entails assuming the identity of someone else; he still has his most audacious adventure ahead of him, including face time with Kim.

Adventure, romance, humor, political satire, it’s all here in an absolutely compelling story.  Part of the novel is narrated by a state interrogator, who provides insight in how North Koreans may think, or at least justify why they live like they do. He’s an eminently sad character, but in his own odd way, has the ability to be a humanitarian in a system where there are none.

The story moves pretty quick – it’s easy at times to get lost in some of the conversations, as often the characters are speaking in coded language of one form or another, as few things in the North Korea portrayed here are as they seem, and even a simple conversation can prove deadly.  Even the conversations with Americans and Japanese Jun meets are never quite what they seem on the surface.