Flowers of mold Stories

Review by Booklist Review

Joining a growing cohort of notable Korean imports, Ha's dazzling, vaguely intertwined collection of 10 stories is poised for Western acclaim. In Flowers of Doom, a loner painstakingly studies his neighbors by sifting through their trash Garbage never lies eventually deciphering the affair that implodes next door in number 507. That same 507 appears in The Woman Next Door, in which a new neighbor moves in; she's single, friendly, and first borrows a spatula from the wife of the family next door, then quickly manipulates possession of the husband and son. Agitated tenants hope to prevent the owner from selling their building in The Retreat, but the evening ends in murder. Violence also drives Nightmare, in which desperate parents try to convince their daughter that an assault upon her was all a nightmare. An unlikely relationship between a security guard and a shoplifting magician ends tragically in Your Rearview Mirror. Women gracing billboards come alive in Flag and Toothpaste. Like Ha's compatriots Han Yujoo (The Impossible Fairy Tale, 2017) and Ancco (Bad Friends, 2018), PEN/Heim Translation Fund-awarded Hong enables English-language readers access into Ha's disturbing, unpredictable, oneiric yet all too recognizable world in which heat stifles, waste rots, and bonds break; yet, for most, life goes on.--Terry Hong Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The characters in this stellar collection from Ha, her American debut, live at the edge of normalcy, flirting with the strange and unsettling while going about their everyday routines. "The Woman Next Door" sees a mother slowly lose control of her family and short-term memory after befriending her new neighbor. "The Retreat" begins as a tale concerning commercial tenants rallying to stop their landlord from demolishing their building before evolving into a story of murder. In the harrowing "Nightmare," a young woman believes she is a victim of a sexual assault, yet her parents try to convince her she dreamt the incident, and in the lighter "Early Beans," a man agrees to deliver a package for an injured moped messenger and ventures into the unknown. Ha sets many of her narratives in the unbearable heat of spring and summer, which adds to the environment and engages the senses, so, for example, when the main character of the title story sifts through a woman's trash, the odor of rotted food twists round his attempts to learn more about her. Likewise, in "Flag," an electrical repairman battles the temperature as he uncovers the mystery of a local power outage. This impressive collection reveals Ha's close attention to the eccentricities of life, and is sure to earn her a legion of new admirers. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In even the most mundane lives, spectacular and shocking things can happen.This is a collection of 10 unsettling short stories by Korean author Ha (Traversing Afternoon, 2017), one of the new wave of Korean women writers, thoughtfully translated by Hong. Ha has a gift for infusing elements of the fantastic into her tales of unremarkable people. Her protagonists are housewives, schoolgirls, and seemingly bland office workers whose daily lives eventually veer off into the surreal, the macabre, or the downright bizarre. Like those of the American auteur David Lynch, Ha's characters seem to exist in another dimension. As these stories unfold, things become more surreal and eccentric. In the title story, "Flowers of Mold," the hero, or maybe antihero, is a man who meticulously searches through his neighbors' garbage bags looking for clues to their lives and personalities. His fervor goes up a notch when he becomes obsessed with his next-door neighbor and her ex-boyfriend. "Waxen Wings" is a modern retelling of the tale of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun, from the perspective of a former female gymnast. She longs to fly but grows too tall to compete and finds a much more extreme alternative. "Your Rearview Mirror" is the story of a department store security guard's obsession with a pretty female customer who he eventually discovers has more than one dark secret. "The Woman Next Door" begins with a polite request to borrow a spatula and ends in a spiral of jealousy, shoplifting, and possibly madness. Even though this is a book of short stories, it's definitely a page-turner, as readers encounter one strange, unsettling saga after another, always wondering, "What can possibly happen now?"If you're looking for a book that will make you gasp out loud, you've found it. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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"The Woman Next Door" A new neighbor's moved into number 507. I'd just taken out the spun laundry and was about to hang it on the clothesline. The washer is junk now. Whenever it goes from rinse to spin, it gives a terrible groan and shudders, as if it might explode any second. Over the years, it's retreated about twenty centimeters from its original spot. Since it's done nothing except wash, rinse and spin for ten years, no wonder it's in bad shape. I pat the top of the washer and mutter, "Yeongmi, I know you're tired, but let's get through it one last time." The washer wrings out the water and barely sounds its end-of-cycle buzzer. Yeongmi is the name I've given the washer. It doesn't get used a whole lot anymore, but it's also my name. To a washing machine, the motor is the same as a heart. A repairman who once came to fix the washer said so. He'd said the motor's life had reached its limit. It managed to finish its job today, but I don't know how long I can keep it going like this. Once my husband had caught me talking to the washer. Seeing nobody else on the balcony, he'd asked, "What are you doing?" So I'd played dumb and said, "What does it look like? I'm doing the laundry." How can a banker who has to calculate sums down to the penny understand? If I'd told him the truth, he would have thought I was crazy. According to him, my head's stuck in the clouds. That's why I'm always floating around in space, never touching solid ground. If he knew I'd gone so far as to give the washing machine a name, he'd probably faint. "So it's finally happened--an error's occurred in your software." Eight years ago, I worked at a bank too. Back then I never thought I'd be talking to a washing machine one day. It's not that I have anything against my husband. It's good for a banker to be like a banker, isn't it? The soy sauce stain on my child's shirt didn't come out. I forgot to soak it beforehand, that's why. When I sort what can be hung from what has to be re-washed, only one of my husband's dress shirts makes it to the clothesline. My husband says things that show how much he doesn't understand: "The washing machine does the laundry and the rice cooker cooks the rice, so what do you do all day?" A mover's ladder hoist is lifting furniture up to the fifth floor. There isn't much. After all, you don't need a whole lot to fill an 800-square-foot apartment. And don't get me wrong. I'm not the type to snoop around. But is it a crime to look? It's not like I'm spying on people with binoculars. All the furniture looks new. I can't stand shabby old things with peeling paint. The person who used to live in 507 brought his cockroaches with him when he first moved in, and soon even our home became infested. It's natural for any woman who's been married a decade to eye new appliances, especially when her own are getting old and scratched up. The furniture may be new, but it's not for newlyweds, that's for sure. One look at the bed says it all. The mattress is standing on its side, but you could easily tell it's a single. This resident, obviously alone with these new things--who could it be? Most of the appliances are the latest models: a washer with a transparent lid, an immaculate gas range, not once lit. My gas range, which has to have its switch pressed several times before it lights up, can't hold a candle to that. Who is this person? If my husband were here, he'd say something for sure, like how I'm turning nosy because I've got too much time on my hands. * "Hello." Right away I know she's the new person in 507. She looks around twenty-eight. Or does she look closer to thirty-four? Don't they say it's hard to guess a woman's age these days? She has a large plastic bag in each hand. The bags are from the department store two bus stops away. They look heavy--the plastic handles dig into her hands, creating purple welts. I'm in the middle of carrying my son's bike up to the fifth floor, which is also the top floor. Our apartment complex doesn't have bicycle racks, because it was built back when I was in high school. Rumors of redevelopment have been floating around for the past ten years, but still, nothing. But my husband keeps insisting this apartment is a valuable investment. Since it was built so long ago, trying to find parking around here is madness. So if they were to make room for bicycle racks, about two parking stalls would have to go. For that reason, racks are out of the question. If I don't want my son's bike to get stolen, I have to carry it all the way up every time. It weighs at least twenty kilograms, more than my six-year-old son. He'd said he wanted to ride the bike, but he's already lost interest, and has been whining for a pair of rollerblades for the past few days. But you can't just go buy anything a child asks for. You shouldn't spoil your kids. This is the only issue my husband and I see eye to eye. I have to sling the seat over my shoulder to carry the bike, but by the time I reach the second floor, my shoulder is stiff and sore. Then it's only curses and frustration that spur me up to the fifth floor. The woman probably came up behind me as I was dragging myself up. She wouldn't have been able to pass me because of the bicycle, but she doesn't look a bit annoyed. And then to have the patience to greet me, with her heavy bags and all--now isn't that something? All I can do is bow awkwardly, hunched over with the bicycle. Cleaning products like scouring pads, rubber gloves, and a box of powder detergent poke out from the bags. She opens her door while I'm chaining the bike to the stair railing and calls out, "Jal butak deuleo yo." It's a rare thing to hear these days. I mean, isn't this something a new employee would say to her superior on her first day? But I'm not her boss, her elder, or even her landlord. I'm just her neighbor. "You know, there's a supermarket nearby with cheaper, better selection..." This is what I offer as a friendly greeting. Jal butak deuleo yo. Soon enough, I would grasp the full meaning of these words. My husband stops undoing his necktie and worries once again. He says my reckless trust for strangers is as dangerous as a child alone by the water. He wasn't always like this. The bank he works for merged with another bank and as a result, many employees were laid off. He didn't lose his job, thank God, but he compared that uncertain period to the torture of hanging from an iron bar, trying not to fall. The generations that had to take mandatory P.E. exams in school know well the agony of doing chin-ups or hanging from a bar for a long time. The anxiety from those several months left a coin-sized bald spot on the crown of his head. "A woman living on her own at that age--isn't it obvious?" My husband seems uneasy about the fact she lives alone. "You'd know what I mean if you saw her. She seems very down-to-earth. People like that are so rare these days." I've said things like this before. But he's turned out to be right every time. Triumphant, my husband would then reproach me: "How can you be such a poor judge of character?" "What does she do anyway?" Obviously I don't know a thing about her. While I set the dinner table, the words he spits out from the bathroom pierce my back like darts. "You better not lend her any money." Excerpted from Flowers of Mold: Stories by Ha Seong-nan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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