‘The Stone Home’ historical fiction review

In the years leading up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea ran a series of institutional “reformatories” ostensibly designed to “rehabilitate” vagrants and other marginalized people. That story serves as the basis for Kim’s novel, which begins in 1980 with 15-year-old Eunju and her mother living a difficult and precarious existence when they are abruptly arrested by the police and locked up in an internment camp. called Stone House. They receive no explanation, no resources or information about this place, but they quickly discover that they are being held in a state-sponsored hell that will require all their daring and resilience to survive.

Eunju’s story is intertwined with that of Sangchul and his older brother, Youngchul. The teenagers were also captured. Unlike Eunju, they have a home and family that they believe will rescue them; Instead, they become prisoners, with no access to the outside world, no details about where they are or how long they will remain. Sangchul and Eunju share similarities: they are cunning, intelligent, full of courage and a fierce determination to escape. They work together in one of the reformatory’s clandestine workshops; Each has a kind of grudging admiration for the other, but in many ways they are too alike to become friends.

Interweaving these stories is another narrative line. In 2011, a strange woman appears at Eunju’s door holding a knife. The woman says that the knife belonged to her father, who recently died, and that she has come looking for information. Dazed, Eunju recognizes the knife, an artifact from her past; At the same time, the identity of this visitor begins to be realized. Raised in America, this young Korean-American woman named Narae has almost no information about her biological family, but her father has indicated that Eunju has her answers.

“Stone Home” is, at its core, an excavation of family secrets and a vindication of the truth, as Eunju suddenly finds herself unearthing repressed memories. Retelling these traumatic events to Narae, Eunju relives them all.

The stories are horrible. Stone Home’s inmates endure inhumane conditions at the hands of deranged individuals, such as Warden and Teacher. Prisoners are starved and beaten, children are forced to work long hours, working to meet impossible quotas, producing fish hooks and sneakers that will then be exported and sold abroad. Alliances between the inmates change, friendships are made and betrayed. Eunju and Sangchul are both encouraged and frustrated by their imprisoned relatives. Sangchul chafes against his older brother’s kinder nature, insisting that only through brute force can he survive. Eunju cares endlessly for her mother, who will do anything to protect her daughter. More than 30 years later, Eunju despairs of being able to adequately convey these experiences to the young Narae:

“Your American impatience, your desire to find a clear answer that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

“I’m telling you what he wanted you to know. I point to the deepening sky, as if the answers were written.”

Eunju wishes she could soften these memories for Narae, but believes she owes the young woman the unvarnished truth. “The Stone Home” is relentless in its account of brutality: at times the writing is so emotionally overloaded and fragmented that it is difficult to follow the chain of events. Still, the beauty of Kim’s prose creates a lyrical counterpoint to the atrocities she describes, heightening the sense of intensity, intimacy, and horror.

Some fictions are both stories and testimonies: a testimony of lessons that should not be forgotten. Haunting and elegiac, “The Stone Home” is fearless in its clear narrative. It asks readers to consider our own secret histories, to allow hard truths to be heard, and in doing so to never allow such barbarity to happen again.

Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of “Birds of Paradise,” “Origin,” and the culinary memoir “Life Without a Recipe.” Her most recent book is “Fencing with the King.”

William Morrow. 352 pages $30