NOVEL READS: The Orphan Master’s Son

By Marly Williams///Staff Writer

Adam Johnson’s newest novel, The Orphan Master’s Son, couldn’t have hit the shelves at a more opportune time. Set in North Korea, the book was released Jan. 10, less than a week before Kim Jong-il, the leader of the nation’s isolated and backward dictatorship, was declared dead. Not much literature is about or set in North Korea, which is understandable  considering how little is known about the country and how little gets out of it. North Korea in itself sounds like something out of an absurd, Orwellian horror story, a place so shocking and bizarre it seems to defy reality. However, through intense research, interviews with citizens and defectors and his own travels in Pyongyang, Johnson succeeds in bringing to life the surreal mystery that is North Korea.

The novel tells the story of Jun Do, the North Korean equivalent of John Doe, who describes himself as a “humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world.” Jun Do grew up in an orphanage as the son of a cruel and self-interested orphan master. He eventually worked as a soldier in the tunnels of the demilitarized zone, a state-employed kidnapper and  radio surveillance officer searching the airwaves for any words of opposition.

Over the course of the novel, he commits heinous acts, falls in love with the country’s most famous actress, visits America, assumes various disguises and is finally able to define his individual self in a country where the state is tirelessly conspiring to wipe out all traces of identity and free thought. Johnson does an excellent job of transporting the nightmarish atrocities of North Korea from the blurry disbelief of reality to the concrete world of the page. His descriptions of prison camps, brutal interrogation sessions and the bizarre propaganda used to brainwash an entire population into submission will disgust and enthrall you.
One may question the morality of such a novel. Should Johnson really be fictionalizing the dreadful political and humanitarian situation in North Korea from his comfy and privileged place in white America? Is this enlightenment or exploitation? Either way, The Orphan Master’s Son proves to be an engrossing novel that allows us to step into a world that it truly seems can only exist on the pages of a novel.