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Published Jun 2018
320 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
The Talented Mr. Ripley meets The Bad Seed in this breathless, chilling psychological thriller by the #1 international bestselling novelist known as "Korea's Stephen King."
Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself?
Early one morning, twenty-six-year-old Yu-jin wakes up to a strange metallic smell, and a phone call from his brother asking if everything's all right at home – he missed a call from their mother in the middle of the night. Yu-jin soon discovers her murdered body, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs of their stylish Seoul duplex. He can't remember much about the night before; having suffered from seizures for most of his life, Yu-jin often has trouble with his memory. All he has is a faint impression of his mother calling his name. But was she calling for help? Or begging for her life?
Thus begins Yu-jin's frantic three-day search to uncover what happened that night, and to finally learn the truth about himself and his family. A shocking and addictive psychological thriller, The Good Son explores the mysteries of mind and memory, and the twisted relationship between a mother and son, with incredible urgency.
"Starred Review. Readers who enjoy grappling with the issue of a narrator's reliability will relish Yu-jin, who believes that 'being true to life wasn't the only way to tell a story.'" - Publishers Weekly
"A creepy, insidious, blood-drenched tale in which nothing is quite what it seems." - Kirkus
"The arrival of You-jeong Jeong on the Korean literary scene in the 2000s shocked and ruptured the system .... She refused the delicate sensitivity often expected of women writers and gave us powerful and potent stories." - The Hankyoreh (Korea)
"You-jeong Jeong's novels are noted for her intricately crafted short sentences that push the urgent plot forward without giving you a chance to breathe. [The Good Son] dissects the inner thoughts of the main character...with the power of those sentences." - The Kyonghyang Sinmun (Korea)
"Dynamic ... Powerfully grabs the reader." - JoongAng Ilbo (Korea)
"A game of survival experienced by a murderer." - The Chosun Ilbo (Korea)
"A coming-of-age story told by a villain, following [his] emotional arc as he realizes that he had no choice but to become a murderer. The reader ends up feeling oddly sympathetic to him." - Yonhap News (Korea)
"Charismatic writing and cinematic dynamism." - Hankook Ilbo (Korea)
"The events unfold in a mere three days. But ... the tight plot transcends physical time." - Munhwa Ilbo (Korea)
"A cool, crafty did-he-do-it thriller...The Good Son will rivet readers of Jo Nesbo and Patricia Highsmith." - A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
"A gripping, atmospheric, edge-of-your-seat thriller, The Good Son is moody and dark in the best way, with an unreliable narrator you won't soon forget. I loved it." - Lynn Berry, author of Under the Harrow
"This book will pull you in; as you devour it, you may find yourself chilled to the bone by its unflinching depiction of the evil coiled within us." - Kyung-Sook Shin, author of Please Look After Mom
This information about The Good Son was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
You-Jeong Jeong is South Korea's leading writer of psychological thrillers and crime fiction, the award-winning author of four novels including Seven Years of Darkness, which was named one of the top ten crime novels of 2015 by Die Zeit (Germany). Her work has been translated into seven languages. A #1 bestseller in Korea, The Good Son is the first of her books to appear in English.
Chi-Young Kim is the award-winning translator of the Man Asian Literary Prize-winning and bestselling novel Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim, and works of fiction by Sun-Mi Hwang, J.M. Lee, and Young-Ha Kim, among others. She lives in Los Angeles.
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