"This regime will come to an end, she said. I have studied every angle, and it cannot last. One day all the guards will run away -- they'll head that way, for the border. There will be disbelief, then confusion, then chaos, and finally a vacuum. You must have a plan ready. Act before the vacuum is filled."
With shifting perspectives and identities, Adam Johnson takes us inside the psyche and processes of oppressive North Korea. "The Orphan Master's Son" catalogs the various roles and personas worn by Jun Do (literally, John Doe), an orphan who must find his way through a society dedicated to honoring the Dear Leader and all that that might entail.
"The key to fighting in the dark was no different: you had to perceive your opponent, sense him, and never use your imagination. The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you."
Johnson weaves a stellar tale that incorporates a host of genres, with the end result being the description of a political dystopia that sustains itself on the anonymity and grief of its citizens.
"Still, her departure was a sad one, as she was returning to America and a life of illiteracy, canines, and multicolored condoms."
Sharing similarities with Viet Thanh Nguyen's "The Sympathizer" (the runner-up in the 2019 Scooties), "The Orphan Master's Son" is a beyond-worthy Pulitzer Prize winner. This stunningly woven and realized tale represents all that is brave and true in the pursuit of novels that change worldviews.
"Before you relinquished yourself ... you let go of all the others, each person you'd once known. They became ideas and then notions and then impressions, and then they were as ghostly as projections against a prison infirmary."
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