Miss Kim Knows

August 5, 2024
The characters in this perceptive collection from Cho (Kim Ji-young, Born 1982) chafe against their families’ expectations and try out new roles in their lives. The pensive “Under the Plum Tree” follows subtle alterations in the relationship between two octagenarian sisters after one of them is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the other changes her name, a move her husband resisted while he was alive. In “Runaway,” a woman who defied her father’s wishes that she live at home until marriage returns to visit her mother after her father runs off. In his absence, the family develops new routines, such as eating food he banned from the house. The sardonic title story, told from the point of view of an unhappy new employee at a dysfunctional ad agency, chronicles the consequences when her boss fires a coworker who had quietly held the business together. In the acidic “Dear Hyunnam Oppa,” which takes the form of a woman’s break-up letter to her abusive boyfriend, she sarcastically thanks him for making all the decisions for them and taking care of her. While some of the stories, including “Puppy Love, 2020,” set during the Covid-19 pandemic, are relatively slight, most are fueled by a palpable sense of rebellion. Taken together, the chorus of voices produces a stirring feminist anthem. Agent: Marcus Hoffmann, Regal Hoffmann & Assoc.

Starred review from September 1, 2024
In her provocatively insightful eight-story collection, lauded Korean writer Cho again centers women at home, school, work, out in the world, and cloistered in old age. Cho's repeated use of "Kim" for unrelated characters' surnames, including in her internationally best-selling Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (2016), suggests the Korean equivalent of Smith, brilliantly channeling the every(wo)man experience in her empathic, revealing narratives. Dongju Kim is "long past sixty" when she finally legalizes her own name in "Under the Plum Tree." In high school, Ms. Kim saves the writer in "Dead Set" from being further bullied by two male teachers. The Miss Kim in "Miss Kim Knows" is the undervalued, overachieving employee who's unfairly fired for doing virtually everything in the office. Travel agent Miss Kim helps a middle-aged woman revel in her bucket-list trip to Canada with her octogenarian mother-in-law. Non-Miss Kims claim their own agency by breaking free of a controlling partner, and middle-school girls confront sexual harassment on their own terms. A 72-year-old father's sudden abandonment brings the rest of his family closer, and in the closing story, "Miss" becomes "Master" for the fifth-grade boy reduced to sobs when his independent young girlfriend dumps him in "Puppy Love, 2020." Gratitude to Seoul-based translator Chang, who is three-for-three in enabling Cho's available-in-English titles.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 20, 2024

Award-winning Korean author Cho's (Saha) latest work is a collection of eight short stories. Each tale, translated by Chung, is relational, and plots vary. Some highlights include the surprising story of a 72-year-old father in "Runaway" who, leaving with money from their bank account, has abandoned his 65-year-old wife and family. The title story is about complex corporate nepotism. Social issues such as domestic violence are addressed in "Grown-Up Girl," and a narcissistic, controlling relationship is depicted in "Dear Hyunnam Oppa." There's also a tale of young love in "Puppy Love, 2020" when a blossoming relationship between soon-to-be fifth graders is thwarted by the angst triggered by the pandemic and a limited phone messaging plan. Serious topics are, at times, offset by sarcasm and humor, which doesn't take anything away from any of the pieces. VERDICT Set in Korea, these stories give readers a hard look at the universality found among humans. This is another winner for Cho and a good selection for readers who are looking for bite-sized stories to ponder. These brief stories pack quite a bit into their narratives. --Shirley Quan

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2024
Eight stories of ordinary women living complex lives can also be seen as eight stories of complex women living ordinary lives. In these stories, set largely in Seoul, Korean women ranging in age from 10 to 80 navigate the everyday with a quiet determination to allow themselves joy. Often, the stories give the reader insight into family dynamics in the context of the larger society's repression. In the collection's tender opening story, "Under the Plum Tree," the narrator's oldest sister, Geumju, is set adrift from a life controlled by the labor of duty by Alzheimer's disease, finally affording her time to enjoy simple pleasures. In "Runaway," the narrator's elderly father runs away from home in order to "start living [his] life" in the years he has left. Though his children and their mother are at first distraught, the father's absence allows them the space to reveal themselves to each other as fully rounded humans, rather than automatons fulfilling their familial roles. Other stories take on the foundational misogyny of a patriarchal culture more directly: In "Grown-up Girl," a woman who self-identities as a feminist finds herself conflicted by the way her high school aged daughter stands against unwanted sexual attention. In the sublime "Night of Aurora," an aging woman struggles with her aversion to being asked to help raise her grandson as society expects, while her daughter struggles with her own aversion to quitting work to dedicate herself solely to motherhood. Throughout the collection floats the specter of Miss Kim--a model for the possibilities of Korean womanhood who is sometimes an icon for the rights of women to live self-determined lives, sometimes a literal incarnation of the invisibility of women's labor, and sometimes a foil for the narrator's own complicated feelings about gender roles, duty, aging, and the relationships between mothers and daughters. Spare but never stark, weary but never despairing, Cho's trim prose examines the under-seen world of women with a keen appreciation for all the possibilities for their lives--including the ones they themselves may not be able to imagine. This subtle collection is elegant, honest, and empowering.

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