The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

The Orphan Master's Son is a story about stories--in this case the stories the people of modern North Korea must make themselves believe in order to survive, stories that the government propagates about the Dear Leader, about how lucky citizens are to live in the glorious DPRK, about the sad state of life in America, even stories about individual citizens. One character says, "Where we are from...stories are factual....For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change."

We get to know this closed-off, dystopian society through the story of the life of Pak Jun Do (John Doe), a kind of North Korean Everyman. In somewhat Forrest Gump style, he variously becomes a tunnel fighter under the DMZ, a government kidnapper of foreigners, an English-language government listener on board a fishing boat, a member of a diplomatic mission to Texas, a miner as a prisoner in a prison camp, an impersonator of a famous General, and a love rival of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. It is through his eyes and the eyes of his government interrogator that we see North Korea, as it is imagined (backed by research) by the author.

Even if the novel were not set in a country that is of particular interest to the U.S. right now, it would be riveting because Johnson is an extraordinary storyteller. In fact, if it had been set in an entirely imaginary place I might have enjoyed it more, because I kept being distracted from the story and its implications by wondering how close the details of life were to fact.

I am not so naive that I don't realize that America propagates its own stories about the glorious life in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and about the sad state of life in other nations which don't choose to follow our example. Still, I agree with this book's continuation of the above quote: "But in America, people's stories change all the time. In America, it is the man who matters."

Johnson has given us a compulsively readable and suspenseful story filled with adventure, terrible scenes of torture, and touching scenes of love and sacrifice. In tone it is somewhat satirical (especially in its depiction of the Dear Leader). He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize.

P.S.: I still think Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk should have won the Pulitzer.