The Orphan Master's Son

Welcome! This is a thread for anyone who wants to join in and read and discuss Adam Johnson's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Orphan Master's Son.

We intend to read this during the month of June.

## Please refer to page numbers or chapters if discussing specific quotes or incidents.

Spoiler Please use the "spoiler" feature to hide any comments that might ruin the plot for someone else.

Thanks and have fun!!

Plot summary from the back of my book:

"Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother--a singer "stolen" to Pyongyang--and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return. Considering himself "a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world," Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress "so pure, she didn't know what starving people looked like."

I will join in Kimmers.

Yay! I found my copy and will dive in this week sometime. : )

>1 Berly: Having never done so, I have no idea how to use the spoiler feature. Can you elucidate?

>5 alcottacre: See the arrow in front of the 5 at the beginning of this post? Let's call that a greater than arrow. Use the arrow going the other way, a less than arrow, then type the word "spoiler" and follow that with the greater than arrow.

To end your spoiler, do the exact same thing, but put "/" inside the arrow in front of the word "spoiler". You can type as much as you want inbetween them. Example below. Do not hit the return button in-between.

greater than arrow, type "spoiler", less than arrow
Write what ever you want
greater than arrow, type "/spoiler", less than arrow

>5 alcottacre: If that's not clear, go here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/177029#

and see post #1 but substitute "spoiler" for "strike"

>6 Berly: >7 Berly: Thanks, Kim!

BTW - I am going to ask Jim to add this group read to the wiki if you have not done so already :)

Was already done, just forgot to come back and let folks know... 😀

You guys rock!

I'm late to the party - I've just started reading. Great story - pulls your right along.

I finished mid-June.
Ouch. This compelling read is a journey through a putrid hell of a North Korea that strips from the majority of it's people no only any prosperity but from all of them the ability to express any identity not constructed to suit the state and may take everything instantly from anyone. There is a dark humor folded into the descriptions of the benevolence with which this is accomplished.

So, I started this thread and I haven't even made it past Chapter 1. Sigh. RL soooo got in the way! What have other people though of it?

Although I really enjoyed the first half of the book - even though it also had dark moments - the second part is so dark and bleak that I may abandon it.

I so rarely abandon books, that I'll try to keep on. But the torture and unmitigated cruelty make this a tough one to read.

I didn't make it much further and have just put it aside for now. I needed some lighter fare right now.