The Naked Tree

(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

The naked tree by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim is a very sensitive and profoundly intimate coming-of-age story surrounded by an adjacent war and the turmoil of a broken family.
When protagonist Lee Kyung was twenty years old, she sold hand-painted portraits to American soldiers while trying to find a way to bee free in a saddened and shadowy household where no man was still lived. A dull, repetitive life until northerner Ok Huido came looking for a job and the initial indifference turned into friendship and then into the first strokes of desire for a girl lost in the day-to-day routine.
They way in which author Keum Suk Gendry-Kim both describes and draws realism is just mesmerizing. The reader gets to get very intimate with the characters, their emotions and their fears. With the slow movement of each panel, the reader gets to appreciate every little detail, every wrinkle in Lee Kyung’s mother’s mouth, every gesture. Even the cold seems to go beyond the page. Thus, the story never feels stagnant and each chapter is just a new opportunity to walk those streets or watch the little monkey dance.
I would also like to mention the translation by Janet Hong. It feels very agile and true. The decision of leaving some of the words in Korean and the translation in a footnote makes some of the conversations feel more genuine, somehow. I do not know if the little footnotes explaining some of the cultural facts are a decision by the translator or if they were already present in the original, but are a huge help.

Keum Suk Gendry-Kim has been critically acclaimed for her other works, and I think The Naked Tree consolidates her as one of the best story-tellers in recent years.