Hunger

Review copy courtesy of NetGalley and Europa Editions. 

As a kid, when I would visit my great-aunt in Kentucky during the summer, we would hear my great-uncle coming home from selling his wares at the flea market minutes before he arrived because he would blast the song ‘The Wanderer’ by Dion DiMucci at full blast - and this was in the ‘80’s before everybody spent more on their speaker systems than for the car - announcing his arrival. 

That has nothing to do with this book except that a character mentions that a neighbor would loudly sing the same song (not ‘The Wanderer’ - she didn’t name the song in her story) late every night when he arrived home on his motorcycle, and though she doesn’t even know him, she worries on nights when she doesn’t hear it and feels “a strange relief” when it returns. And this has everything to do with this book.  

Hunger by Choi Jin-young is one of the most beautiful and depressing horror novels I’ve read in a while, and “worrying” was a constant emotion, as it is when your existence is all about figuring out how to afford to keep living. 

Gu’s parents were so far in debt when they disappeared, he couldn’t earn money fast enough even to pay the interest on it. 

When he is killed by a car, his…the closest term I can think of is “soulmate”, Dam, rather than let him be sold by the debt collectors who effectively owned him, has decided she will eat his body. 

Though dead, Gu’s consciousness is aware of this, and the story of their lives since they met at eight years old is revealed through their dual narration, lives of hard work and no way to get ahead or feel completely free to love each other due to one tragedy after another. 

Food was the primary love language in Hunger, and by feeding Dam, Gu’s final act for her was to show his love, just as hers was to him by accepting. 

So, yeah, if you want to feel miserable in the best way, go read Hunger.