17 May / The Old Woman with the Knife by Gu Byeong-Mo, translated by Chi-Young Kim [in Booklist]
Once upon a time, Hornclaw had a family… but they were so poor they gave her away as a child to be a better-off cousin’s servant. A moment of envy becomes a prolonged mistake that gets her thrown out, where she lands with a kind couple, and is eventually groomed into a “disease control specialist.” Read: assassin for hire.
At 65, she’s still on the job, but she’s hampered by aging, injuries, and, well, for the first time in decades, a few emotional attachments. Something is off at work, though, and an uppity young colleague is becoming more of a nuisance every chance he gets. But why?
Award-winning Korean novelist Gu Byeong-Mo makes her translated-into-English debut, aurally enabled by popular Chinese Indonesian American Nancy Wu. With so many (knife) twists, Wu has plenty of excitement to infuse into Gu’s dynamic narrative. That said, as though acknowledging Hornclaw’s age, Wu’s pace here seems to skew slightly slower than her usual narrations. Also, as she reads, “it’s cold season,” we hear the slight congestion. But the (fatal) work must go on.
Review: “Media,” Booklist, May 1, 2022
Readers: Adult
Published: 2013 (Korea), 2022 (United States)