While "Whale" begins with Chunhee, a mysterious young brickmaker of imposing physicality who cannot speak, introduced a the Queen of Red Bricks, it quickly situates her story within a longer multi-generational saga composed of three parts. While we learn of Chunhee s tragic path to her becoming someone who makes bricks of the highest quality, the novel retraces the familial circumstances that shaped her. While poignant yet brutal, "Whale" is also a satire of how we the general public, mass media, even artists and writers tend to romanticize voiceless figures of history."

Publication Year: 2016