The preface exposes exactly what happened: “I ate a person. Is that a sin?” Dam considers following Gu in death but decides on a “better plan”: “I will eat you and live for an extraordinarily long time . . . I will live to remember you.” Meticulously, Dam bathes and cleans Gu, and from nails, hair, flesh, she ingests his body into her own. “No one can know Gu died,” she reasons. Because those murderous loan sharks will “try to sell him for parts, no doubt,” anything to offset the debt Gu inherited from his disappeared parents. For lovers so young, Gu and Dam shared more misery than joy, plagued by loss, lack, and need. But through childhood to young adulthood, neither could let the other go. “I’m not saying let’s be happy. I’m saying let’s be together. I don’t mind being unhappy with you.” Published in 2015 in Korea, award-winning Choi’s spare novella is an anti-love story rife with condemnation for a social system that utterly fails its youth. A cult bestseller in Korea, it arrives in a crisp, clear English translation by Soje.
