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Recently, we asked our readers to send in a short review of their favourite book of 2012. We’re pleased to announce that our favourite review was by Leah Griesmann, of Krys Lee’s short story collection, Drifting House.
Leah wins two Random House titles, Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic and In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. You can read her review below:
Given that the 50-year armistice between the Koreas has resulted in one of the world’s wealthiest countries sharing a border with one of the poorest and most repressed, it may seem surprising there hasn’t been a greater glut of literature exploring the region. In Korean-American author Krys Lee’s searing new story collection Drifting House, Lee explores the emotional reach of characters whose losses are so great the risks they take to survive them seem almost mundane.
In ‘A Temporary Marriage’, a divorcee embarks on a sham marriage in the U.S. to search for her missing daughter; in ‘The Goose Father’, a husband who has sent his family abroad is drawn to the troubled young man who moves into their room; and in the title story, ‘Drifting House’, the horror of war exacts a terrible price from children closer to death than to life.
Weaving together history from the IMF crisis to the Korean War, and moving seamlessly from the peninsula to the diaspora, these stories examine the inner lives of characters who must navigate dangerous and ever-shifting terrain. Unflinching and always surprising, Drifting House combines finely wrought prose with a deep understanding of humans under duress. —Leah Griesmann
