Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories

Cho Nam-Joo explores the lives of women in contemporary Korea by looking at them across all ages and occupations. The stories are not linked in any way - the only common thing between them is the fact that they have a Korean woman in their center and yet the collection has more cohesiveness than some novels I had read lately.

Under the Plum Tree opens the collection with the story of two aging sisters - one of them still living on her own, the other one in a home suffering from a bad case of Alzheimer's. There are more siblings but it is really the story of these two - the narrator who is afraid of the day when she will also need to stop and the elder sister who is close to dying. A meditation on family, death and choices with enough show more heartbreak thrown in to set the tone for the collection.

In Dead Set an author is accused of stealing someone's story while she is trying to make her peace with her own memories. And someone in that turmoil, she gets death treats.

Runaway turns a familiar story on its head - instead of the child running, it is the father who runs away. The woman here is the narrator, the daughter, who finds that this disappearance brings the family close together (while the father makes sure she knows he is ok - or so she believes).

In Miss Kim Knows an aging woman had been fired and her replacement seems to have troubles filling her shoes. Until strange things start happening. It never becomes clear what really did happen - was that Miss Kim taking petty revenge or is our narrator a lot less reliable in her story than we thought she was.

Dear Hyunnam Oppa takes the form of a rejection letter - the narrator decides not to marry the man who asks her to but while telling him so she explains to him that she knows how he had gaslighted her in the previous 10 years and reclaims her lost sense of self.

Night of Aurora sees a widowed woman and her widowed mother-in-law fulfill her biggest dream - to see the Aurora. The 3 generations of women (there is also a daughter) in this family end up finding their own way into what they need and the story ends up being one of the strongest in the collection.

In Grown-up Girl a boy is accused in taking inappropriate pictures and his mother goes to the mother of the girl who filmed the whole thing to ask her to intervene. Meanwhile in the girls family the story takes a new significance as her grandmother had worked her whole life in trying to save abused women. The thin line between a joke and an assault is hard to handle sometimes but this story manages to do it marvelously.

Puppy Love, 2020 closes the collection with two kids who fall in love just when COVID hits. Things go... weird.

The collection is very Korean - the stories are full of cram schools and Korean food and cultural traditions. I wish the publisher had added a bit of a dictionary for some of them but on the other hand you don't really need more than what the story tells you to understand. I am sure I missed some nuances in some stories because I do not have the cultural background but I still loved this collection.

Highly recommended. show less

In a Nutshell: A short story collection by the brilliant Korean writer who always tackles powerful themes in her standoffish style. A good range of female characters, strong themes. A wonderful option for literary short fiction lovers.

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I have been a huge fan of this author ever since I read ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982’. Its dry writing style belied the powerful theme it contained. The statement it made against the systemic patriarchy in Korea was so realistic that it stood true to regions much beyond Korean boundaries.

This collection of short stories explores a similar theme. The eight stories herein all focus on women, with the central characters ranging in age from preteen to octogenarian. The blurb show more describes the book as "exploring the intimacies of contemporary Korean womanhood", and the stories do justice to this claim.

In line with the author’s earlier works, each story is literary in style, focussing more on character development while still containing a strong plot. The stories are written in first person as well as third person. However, in both cases, we get to know the character’s inner thoughts intimately. It’s a brilliant example of how both grammatical voices can be used optimally for and without any compromise on character detailing by good writers.

The author’s prose is also as sharp as always, with the writing being to the point and without any flowery embellishments. It is a stark look at stark scenarios, elevating the grittiness and realism of the narrative.

The plots are not always linear, which might be a constraint to those who don’t know this author’s style. The random back-and-forth can be confusing. However, once we reach the end, we realise the importance of every event, past as well as present.

To be honest, I was a bit unsure about how the author would tackle the endings. As short fiction lovers know, endings make a difference to our experience of this format. In both ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1984’ and ‘Saha’ – the author’s only two translated-to-English novels so far – the endings were unexpected and shocking. In the former book, it worked well; in the latter, it was a disappointment. To my surprise, this collection handles most endings excellently without going OTT in settlement or happiness. The story stops at the right point of intrigue, when the character is on the cusp of a major life-changing situation, and yet the parting words leave us with enough information to guess what might happen next.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Of the eight stories, only two earned less than 3.5 stars. The rest were all winners. Here are the six stories that won my heart:

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Cho Nam-Joo is most well-known for her novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, which was made into a famous movie as well. Her work is associated with the feminist movement in Korea. This collection of stories is built around the lives of women and their experiences as sisters, wives, mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law. Some of the stories deal with difficult topics: domestic abuse, gaslighting, sexual discrimination, and sexual bullying. Others are lighter: a woman and her mother-in-law take a trip to see the aurora, first young love during Covid restrictions, family bonds. Although I could appreciate the writing (and translation), I found it difficult to enjoy the book. It may be that I am not an adept reader of short fiction, or it was the show more case of wrong book for my mood. show less