The Orphan Master's Son

The Orphan Master's Son (2012) by Adam Johnson. A novel set in North Korea? Doesn't sound too promising, yet this brilliant, sinister book manages to make it fascinating. Johnson very convincingly portrays the psychotic, paranoid society that results from two generations of total dictatorship. Loudspeakers blare daily, even inside people's own houses, with constant propaganda which sounds ludicrous to Western ears but which the people who are subjected to it eventually come to believe. Into this setting comes Jun Do, the son of the orphan master, not really an orphan himself. In the book, North Korea is crawling with orphans (their parents have been "sent away"), and orphans are of the lowliest status. It is a book filled with sadness, but also with courage, humor and surprising love. Grade: A