If I Had Your Face

A Novel

by Frances Cha

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Pub Date 21 Apr 2020 | Archive Date 01 Jul 2020

Penguin Random House Canada | Bond Street Books

General Fiction (Adult)

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Description

A riveting, feminist debut about four women navigating contemporary South Korea, a world of strict social hierarchies, extreme plastic surgery and K-pop fan mania.

"Even as a girl, I knew the only chance I had was to change my face. When I looked into the mirror, I knew everything in it had to change, even before a fortune-teller told me so."

This utterly compelling novel follows the interconnected lives of four young women balancing on the edge of survival in contemporary Seoul, Korea.

Kyuri is a heartbreakingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a "room salon," an exclusive bar where she entertains wealthy businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake with a client one evening suddenly threatens her livelihood. Her roomate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in an impossible relationship with the super-wealthy heir to one of Korea's biggest companies. Down the hall from their apartment building lives Ara, a hair stylist whose obsession with a boy-band pop star drives her to desperate extremes. And Wonna, on the floor just below, is a newlywed trying to get pregnant with a child that she and her husband will not be able to afford to raise and educate in the cutthroat economy of Seoul.

Together, they give us a gripping picture of their unfamiliar world of cultural hierarchies, yet unmistakably universal in the ways their tentative friendships will prove their saving grace.

FRANCES CHA is a former travel and culture editor for CNN in Seoul. She grew up in the United States, Hong Kong, and South Korea. A graduate of Dartmouth College and the Columbia University MFA writing program, she has written for The Atlantic, The Believer, and the Yonhap News Agency, among others, and has lectured at Columbia University, Ewha Womans University, Seoul National University, and Yonsei University. She lives in Brooklyn.

Advance Praise

"Absolutely stunning. Assured, bold and electrifying, If I Had Your Face marks the entrance of a bright new voice in fiction." —Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six

"Make way for Frances Cha, an entrancing new voice who guides us into the complexities and contradictions of modern-day Seoul, a dissonant, neon world that is ripped open to bare the same universal and human challenges that face us all. I devoured the novel in a single sitting, and so will you." —Janice Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Teacher

"Few American novelists know Seoul the way Frances Cha does and in her intimate, panoramic debut, she brings that dazzling city to life. There are voices here you haven't heard before. . . . An enthralling read from the very first page." —Ed Park, author of Personal Days

"Each voice in this quartet cuts through the pages so cleanly and clearly that the overall effect is one of dangerously glittering harmony. The tale told here is as engrossing as a war chant, or a mosaic formed with blades, every piece a memento sharpened on those unyielding barriers between us and our ideal lives." —Helen Oyeyemi, author of Gingerbread

"A provoking, ultimately inspiring tale of women pushing back against oppressive customs both traditional and new. . . . Frances Cha, like her quartet of narrators, has a rebel's heart." —Jonathan Dee, author of The Locals

"It's difficult to believe this is Frances Cha's first novel—she's a masterful storyteller. I couldn't put If I Had Your Face down; I was riveted by the stories of four young women navigating life in the extreme, competitive environment of modern Seoul. I loved reading about a world I knew nothing about, and from the first page, it was clear Cha was the best possible guide. I highly recommend this novel." —Ann Napolitano, author of Dear Edward

"With graceful precision, unflinching honesty, and intimate compassion Frances Cha writes, in exacting detail, of the desperation and dreams of five young women in modern-day Korea. Their dreams are grandly superficial, profoundly sad and, they believe, within reach. Their desperation is sharply realized by the deprivation, cruelty, violence, agony and, worst of all, the inevitability of their lives. A haunting novel of intelligence and sensitivity, If I Had Your Face is sure to leave an indelible mark on your heart and in your mind." —Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of Rabbits for Food

"It's fantastic. . . . It's compelling, understated, casually brutal, and very cynical. I love it."

—Hanna Jameson, author of The Last

"Troubling, kaleidoscopic, and hugely enjoyable." —Nell Zink, author of Mislaid