Fox Girl [Paperback]

Fox Girl is a brilliant "awareness novel", transporting the reader to 1960s Korea, where women trapped in a culture of prostitution struggle to survive in "America Town," serving the American soldiers on the local base. Narrated by the teenage Hyun Jin and focusing mainly on herself and friends Sookie and Lobetto, it shows how multiple generations are trapped into a cycle of exploitation, especially children of prostitutes and American soldiers. The characters and their lives are realistic; clearly, the author knows of what she writes.

Still, an exposé doesn't automatically make a great novel, and there are a few problems that prevent me from recommending it wholeheartedly. For one, all the main characters are just plain unlikable. Yes, they're prostitutes and pimps, they are leading rough lives, and they seem quite realistic as they are. Still, the author seems to be going out of her way to make them seem unpleasant, which made it hard for me to care about their struggles; I would have had more sympathy for Hyun Jin if the author hadn't spent the first 100 pages showing us what an insensitive friend she is and how she bullies other kids. And the early scene where her parents kick her out seems random and contrived.

The timeline irritated me quite a bit while reading the book: the story covers several years, during which the lead female characters become involved in prostitution, get pregnant, etc.... despite which their actual ages remain ambiguous. The prologue presents Sookie's age at a couple of key moments, but this information doesn't fit with the amount of time that seems to have elapsed in the text, and it's unclear how old everyone else is in relation to Sookie. She and Hyun Jin appear to be the same age until about 1/3 of the way in, when we discover that Sookie is two years older... although she claims to remember Hyun Jin's birth, which she could not have if she was two. And so forth. This was a problem for me throughout the book, although other readers might not be bothered.

There are some other minor issues as well: Korean words are used without any translation, and there are continuity problems (Hyun Jin commenting on the relationship between Sookie and Lobetto only to be surprised later on by what she already knew, etc.).

I've written a lot criticizing this book, but I agree with a lot of the things the positive reviewers have stated: if you're looking for a gritty, realistic book (and I mean seriously gritty; expect rape, bestiality, etc., to be described in some detail) about the lives of Korean prostitutes, this is your book. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Fox Girl, by Nora Okja Keller, is a very well written story of survival. It takes place right after the events of the Korean War and shows how it affects the children as they grow up. The main character is Hyun Jin. In the beginning, she lives on a military base with her family and her only friend is an ugly young girl everyone calls Sookie. Sookie, as a child, was in total awe of her beautiful mother and her many boyfriends. Little does either child know, however, is that Sookie's mom is a prostitute. The chapters that tell of their childhood are extremely amusing with the naive thoughts of the young girls about Sookie's mother. These chapters are not all fun and games, though, for they foreshadow Sookie's destiny. Hyun tells of Sookie's mother's talks with them about sex and men which seem to influence how Sookie lives her life later in the book... The book grows slightly darker when the girls grow up and Sookie ends up becoming one of the most beautiful young women in the neighborhood and gets into her mother's profession. Hyun's opinions are as interesting as the story from beginning to end. Overall, this all makes for a good read, at anytime, especially if you have a spring break or summer vacation coming up.

...I kinda knew I was in for a harsh ride. I mean, I read the inside flap (...); however, desensitized as I am, I had to force myself to read past the recounting of Hyun Jin's first occupation. Also, this is a book in which the main character, the predicted heroine, is not quite a heroine; the story unfolds from her, but it's her friend Sookie who drives the action, who is the repulsively attractive person we all know, the one that doesn't seem to think in quite the same morals that you do. To Sookie, she thinks to save herself first; but the paradox is that what Sookie does will ultimately save her friend and her child, and I think that she understood this far better than Hyun Jin does. It's not enough to take away the "heroine" label from Hyun Jin, just to chip it.

Through Hyun Jin and Sookie, we see the facets of friendship and the interpretations of motherhood, and how dreams of America that once possessed the people that settled this country has swept, and influenced, the East. It's somewhat low-key in Hyun Jin's narratives; you catch nuances of the tone. It's a disturbing book, pointing out the unredemptive ugliness of human society, but offering the solace that perhaps some can slip through, correct the mistakes made.