May 2012

Back in January, at a librarian conference, an advance copy of ALL WOMAN AND SPRINGTIME, a debut novel, was handed to me with a comment, “I think you will like this” from someone who usually knows my tastes. I got back to my hotel that evening and plucked this book from the stack I had picked up and started reading…and read for hours.

The book opens in North Korea, where Gyong-ho (Gi) is working at a sewing machine in  a cold factory. In her view are photos of The Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, and his son, Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. These two men, whom she has not met, dominate her life as all actions during the day for her and her fellow citizens are done to please them. From the start, author Brandon W. Jones sets up the confinement of this world where each day is measured in tiny bits and bites of success, and there is a constant foreshadowing that danger is everywhere and the world is not safe.

As Jong-Il had just died in December, I found myself looking behind the curtain at just what it had meant to live under his tyranny. And while this book is fiction, you know the stories behind it are all too real.

Gi is serious, diligent and fearful, a brilliant mathematician whose mind calculates and measures life. Her friend, Il-sun, is her opposite; she is what Gi describes as “All woman and sunshine.” Il-sun dreams of a better life and a bigger world, whereas Gi is consumed with fitting into the world that presently exists. Il-sun’s hope gets them out of the prison of their world in North Korea, but misguidedly plunges them into another hellish life.

The girls end up wrapped up in a sex trafficking ring that takes them from South Korea and finally to the United States. There is one very telling moment that Gi has not lost who she really is as she talks about how many sex acts she has performed, reducing them to numbers. Her very sharp mind takes a horrific situation and measures it.

While there is a lot of sadness and despair in these women’s lives, the small acts that they take to trust to wrest control and keep hope will drive you to want to see how this ends. And I dare you not to feel grateful about your own safe life and world once you finish it --- while also better understanding what it is like to live under many modes of tyrannical rule.