07/08/2019
Lee’s heartbreaking debut riffs on true events to tell the story of a brief connection between Marilyn Monroe and a Korean War survivor. Kim Ae-Sun has changed her name to Alice J. Kim, and in early 1954, less than a year after the cease-fire, she’s working as a typist and translator at an American military base in Seoul. When Marilyn comes to visit the troops that remain in the country, Alice is assigned to escort her to various functions, helping with organizing and translating. Observing and interacting with the glamorous movie star does little to soothe Alice’s memories of the loss of her youthful self, her two prewar lovers, and a child she had taken into her care after escaping a refugee camp. The atrocities of war—including the battles of her country and the bitter conflict within herself—continue to sear Alice’s thoughts after she’s located by one of her ex-lovers during Marilyn’s tour, and when she realizes he had worked as a spy, her world is shaken again. The presence of Marilyn doesn’t dominate the story, but when she helps Alice to face despair simply by the force of her personality, her impact is as dramatic as her short life. This is a well-told historical snapshot, but at the center is the author’s convincing portrayal of the pain Alice experiences. Lee’s touching examination of the long shadow of a war cast over one woman will leave readers intensely moved. (Sept.)
With great care and mastery of poetic language, translator Kimbrings Lee’s novel to English-language readers, a large swath of whom it will speak to. Lovers of historical fiction will appreciate Lee’s attention to dates and details, while readers seeking intrigue will find plot aplenty, and it’s all tangled in a tragic romance built up to epic proportions.
The Starlet and the Spy explores war and survival, grief and guilt, and our complicated relationship with beauty. This poetically translated, richly imagined novel provides a moving, thought-provoking glimpse into a fascinating moment in history.
With great care and mastery of poetic language, translator Kimbrings Lee’s novel to English-language readers, a large swath of whom it will speak to. Lovers of historical fiction will appreciate Lee’s attention to dates and details, while readers seeking intrigue will find plot aplenty, and it’s all tangled in a tragic romance built up to epic proportions.
2019-06-17
Lee, a screenwriter, has structured her short novel almost like an avant-garde film: The present action frames several flashbacks as the story follows an emotional, not a linear, arc. In 1954, the Korean War has ended and American forces occupy the South. For four morale-boosting days, Marilyn Monroe (the new Mrs. DiMaggio) is scheduled to visit Seoul and entertain the troops. First-person narrator Alice J. Kim (her nom de guerre), a translator and clerk on an American base, is tapped to serve as the star's interpreter. From here it is rough chronological sailing; readers are advised to cling to the date headings of each chapter as flotation devices. A talented artist born to wealth, Alice (real name Ae-sun) refused an opportunity to escape. When Northern forces seized Seoul, she survived for a time by drawing propaganda posters for the enemy but eventually endured bombardment, then captivity in a Northern POW camp. Torn between Yo Min-hwan, a married lover, and Joseph Pines, an American agent, she alienated both, and her clumsy revenge had unintended, dire consequences. She seeks redemption by searching for Chong-nim, an orphaned girl she had helped during the evacuation of Hungnam. She is also contemplating suicide for reasons it takes the entire novel to establish. Acknowledging that the Korean War is still "The Forgotten War," Lee, in this able translation by Kim, depicts several horrific episodes: neighborhoods in flames, hordes of refugees trying to escape the Communist invasion on overcrowded American ships, piles of corpses with those still living trapped beneath. The gritty truth is too often undermined by the banal love triangle, and Kim is perhaps overly fond of pronouncements like "A woman's beauty is powerful enough to change her fate, though it becomes useless as she grows old." The Marilyn frame story does pose revealing parallels between two outwardly privileged ingénues with inner scars.
An intermittently chaotic novel which manages to snatch poignancy from the jaws of cliché.
Ji-Min Lee pens a moving story of war and healing, wrapped in the glittery ribbon of Hollywood myth as east collides with west. Broken, bilingual Alice Kim is barely making ends meet in post-war Seoul, haunted by guilt and loss when she meets the woman who has everything: Marilyn Monroe, newly come to Korea on a USO tour. When Alice is assigned to the dazzling platinum starlet as a translator, both women will see the wounds the other is hiding...but can Alice recover her past strength and forge a new future when Marilyn departs? The Starlet and the Spy is a quiet, luminous story of a woman piecing her soul together in the aftermath of war, heartbreaking and uplifting on every page.” — Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
“This story of the unlikely meeting of two vulnerable women is a beautifully woven page turner. The battle-weary woman and the pin-up girl who meet, connect, separate: each changed by the brief union.” — Heather Morris, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz
“This is a story about two women who have transcended time. Nobody has written about the tragedy of war with such imagination. It is wonderful and lively and sad and makes you nod in recognition.”- — Kyung-Sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mom
“The Starlet and the Spy explores war and survival, grief and guilt, and our complicated relationship with beauty. This poetically translated, richly imagined novel provides a moving, thought-provoking glimpse into a fascinating moment in history.” — Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Race for Paris
“Lee’s touching examination of the long shadow of a war cast over one woman will leave readers intensely moved.” — Publishers Weekly
“With great care and mastery of poetic language, translator Kimbrings Lee’s novel to English-language readers, a large swath of whom it will speak to. Lovers of historical fiction will appreciate Lee’s attention to dates and details, while readers seeking intrigue will find plot aplenty, and it’s all tangled in a tragic romance built up to epic proportions.” — Booklist
“Unique in its setting, mid-1950s Korea newly split by communism after two devastating wars, this brief novel will be appreciated by readers who enjoy historical context and/or strong female protagonists” — Library Journal
Ji-Min Lee pens a moving story of war and healing, wrapped in the glittery ribbon of Hollywood myth as east collides with west. Broken, bilingual Alice Kim is barely making ends meet in post-war Seoul, haunted by guilt and loss when she meets the woman who has everything: Marilyn Monroe, newly come to Korea on a USO tour. When Alice is assigned to the dazzling platinum starlet as a translator, both women will see the wounds the other is hiding...but can Alice recover her past strength and forge a new future when Marilyn departs? The Starlet and the Spy is a quiet, luminous story of a woman piecing her soul together in the aftermath of war, heartbreaking and uplifting on every page.
This is a story about two women who have transcended time. Nobody has written about the tragedy of war with such imagination. It is wonderful and lively and sad and makes you nod in recognition.”-
This story of the unlikely meeting of two vulnerable women is a beautifully woven page turner. The battle-weary woman and the pin-up girl who meet, connect, separate: each changed by the brief union.
In 1954, Marilyn Monroe embarked on a USO tour of Seoul. Janet Song narrates this story of the fictional Korean woman designated to be Marilyn’s translator. Song delivers a delicate but not subservient manner for Alice, who begrudgingly agrees to accompany the starlet, despite the crisis in her personal life. Song’s tone begins to warm as Alice discovers shared heartaches with Marilyn, who basks in the soldiers’ adoration but struggles with her own demons. Marilyn has only minor appearances in this story, but Song narrates her parts with a well-tempered imitation of her famously wispy voice. Song’s feminine style is not particularly suited to male characters, but these are few, and she delivers their limited dialogue with heartiness. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
In 1954, Marilyn Monroe embarked on a USO tour of Seoul. Janet Song narrates this story of the fictional Korean woman designated to be Marilyn’s translator. Song delivers a delicate but not subservient manner for Alice, who begrudgingly agrees to accompany the starlet, despite the crisis in her personal life. Song’s tone begins to warm as Alice discovers shared heartaches with Marilyn, who basks in the soldiers’ adoration but struggles with her own demons. Marilyn has only minor appearances in this story, but Song narrates her parts with a well-tempered imitation of her famously wispy voice. Song’s feminine style is not particularly suited to male characters, but these are few, and she delivers their limited dialogue with heartiness. N.M.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
