Yewon, a young woman lost in a society that doesn’t know what to do with itself and its young, dreams of a hotel with infinite keys to infinite rooms. Nothing much happens there, at first, but these involuntary nightly visits fill her with a terror hard to explain. The daily reality she escapes to, however, offers little respite, but only other forms of pain. Out of a job and with no outline of a future to turn to, she is stuck in a tiny village with her mother who – same as the other women in their community – spends her time washing the bones of her ancestors. Rotting fragmented pieces of bone mingling in one tub that can never clean the living off the sense of decomposition their ancestors leave behind. History stuck on the women’s hands, as they wash them in death.
Death and life, or what is left of it, are intimately linked here. Yewon and her sister were born in that bathtub on the bones of those who came before them. Death rules their life, which only continues to serve the past.
Yewon wants to break this cycle but struggles to find an inspiration, a model to follow, with her brother stationed as a young soldier near the border to North Korea and slipping deeper and deeper into desperation and her sister, the forever stoic, facing her own private catastrophe quietly and alone. Caught between the desire to support her family and making her own way, Yewon finds herself wandering further into the hotel of her dreams each night, until she realises, she might not be alone in there, that this is not her personal horror after all…
Yeji Y. Ham’s debut is a complex and often compelling exploration of generational trauma and the ways in which we are prone to pass the burden of past on suffering to our children. She shows in ways that are often vague and then startlingly stark how communities can foster this intense desire to hold on to a painful past, rather than turning to face an uncertain future. How we like to chose the known evil over the potential for something new.
The horror in this novel, which has a distinctly gothic feel, is of the slow-burning, quiet kind. Or rather, disquieting. You won’t meet any ghosts in here, unless you count the persistent haunting of the past. But I find the portrayal of the horrors of everyday life much more frightening. The slow build-up of tension and anxiety are well executed, though Ham’s writing is definitely not flawless. It can be cluttered and – seemingly inadvertently – meandering at times, but the strong imagery of the bones being washed won me over and the unique engagement with history and trauma kept me intrigued.
Though this novel might not be perfect, it is a really solid debut that introduces yet another fascinating literary voice from South Korea and I will certainly be watching what Yeji Ham does next.
Published by Zando, 2024
Comments