Thursday, April 11, 2013

The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson

Read this book.  I've been recommending it to everyone I know who enjoys literature.

So what else can I say about Mr. Johnson's work?   I'll just quote Sam Sacks' comments from his Wall Street Journal article:
"...the single best work of fiction published in 2012. The novel is set in North Korea, and Mr. Johnson's imagined rendering of the late dictator Kim Jong Il gives us an apotheosis of modern-day insanity. The tyrant (who actually wrote and directed movies in real life) acts as though the whole world is his personal reality TV show. But though this world is profoundly absurd, Mr. Johnson unforgettably depicts the savage measures needed to uphold the delusion. The book's cunning, flair and pathos are testaments to the still-formidable power of the written word."
Oh, and Mr. Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel.

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