Aviary

In gorgeous prose, Dong (Liar, Dreamer, Thief) crafts a jam-packed, genre-bending story of murder, captivity, ghosts, monsters, and a harrowing escape to freedom. Hee-Jin is an undocumented woman living in South Korea in perpetual fear of being discovered. Her sister, Hee-Young, has long since disappeared to America for an artist residency, but suddenly she shows up at Hee-Jin’s doorstep, horrifically transformed and on the brink of death. When Hee-Jin finds Hee-Young’s immaculately forged U.S. passport, she makes the desperate choice to steal it and flee to the U.S. In Pittsburgh, she assumes her sister’s identity and rejoins a mysterious mentorship program for impoverished young female artists from unstable parts of the world. Soon, however, Hee-Jin realizes she’s more prisoner than volunteer, and it becomes clear the program is far more sinister and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, full of perils both real and imagined, and plenty of ghosts to light the way. Dong’s exquisite descriptions of Hee-Jin’s isolation and loneliness are haunting, and the nods to Korean folklore add to the lush, almost dreamlike experience. Some questions go frustratingly unanswered and the thematic explorations of Korean diasporic identities, female exploitation, and the nature of art jostle for space. Still, this grisly and tragic tale should win plenty of fans. (Apr.)