Review by Booklist Review
Jin Han thought she was happily married to Philip Selig, until a Korean family curse proves prescient. Jin has secret desires Philip can't/won't fulfill. Philip wants a baby despite agreed-upon child-freeness promises. Jin meets bewitching ballerina Lidija, and Jin is especially vulnerable. Her photography has stalled, she's abandoned her faith, and she's haunted by her estrangement from her mother. The curse manifests as a first-person demand, to be heard as installments of "the kisaeng's story, as told to Jin Han" that interrupt Jin's narrative. Kwon (The Incendaries, 2018) creates stark sentences elevated by exquisite vocabulary--fiat, mirific, Icarian, sluing. Spare pages belie a dense narrative exploring identity, sexuality, religion, and parenthood. Kwon showcases multicultural agility. Jin can mean truth; Han is the first character in Hanguk (the Korean writing system) and a uniquely Korean concept akin to aching sorrow and deep resentment. Kwon labels Jin's mother solely in Korean, 엄마, instilling both intimacy (the familiarity of "mommy") and distance (Korean made foreign by English). Using 엄마 further underscores Jin's own maternal rejection. In spite of many notable elements, Exhibit is more show than indelible art.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A female friendship takes on mythological and tragic dimensions in the haunting sophomore novel from Kwon (The Incendiaries). Jin Han, a Korean American photographer and Christian apostate, is at a crossroads. On the surface, everything seems placid: she claims that she and her diffident but charming husband, Philip, don't want children, and that she's happy with their found family of arty New Yorkers, who compensate for the parents she barely knows in Seoul. However, Jin believes she's cursed by the unquiet spirit of an ancestor, a kisaeng paid to keep men company, who fell in love with the firstborn son of an illustrious Korean clan and died vowing revenge against the family that denied the couple's love. When Jin meets Lidija Jung, a star ballerina absent from the stage following a mysterious leg injury, the two forge an immediate connection. Their chemistry fuels an obsession in Jin, and as the women's growing intimacy begins to jeopardize her career, identity, and marriage, she considers her generational trauma and wonders, could Lidija be the kisaeng's revenge? Hypnotic and disquieting, this slow burn will stick in readers' minds. (May)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Kwon's follow-up to The Incendiaries provides a glimpse inside the lives and marriage of Philip and his artist/photographer wife, Jin. After the two meet ballet dancer Lidija at a party, Jin and Lidija forge a friendship that deepens as Jin confides the difficulties in her marriage. Jin and Lidija soon begin an affair, with Lidija as the dominatrix in their BDSM relationship. Interspersed within this story are chapters that eerily relay the words of a Korean kiaseng (akin to a geisha), telling of her enslavement at the age of six and later of her own desires with a woman lover. Kwon specifically touches upon the fetishized perception of Asian women in society and, as in her previous novel, dissects the lives of a couple in conflict, where a third party becomes a divisive threat. She explores themes of traditional and nontraditional love, marriage, and parenthood. Race, culture, and identity are also addressed, especially when readers later learn that Philip's birth name was Felipe, and he grew up speaking Spanish. VERDICT Fragmented chapters, as is Kwon's style, might make this novel a challenging read for some, but the work offers much for book groups and individuals to ponder.--Shirley Quan
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An artist at a crossroads in her career and personal life develops a relationship with a ballet dancer. Jin Han is a photographer on the edge of 30. She's had acclaim in the past with a series about religious pilgrims, but she's afraid the "image has left"--she hasn't produced any work worth keeping in a long time. She's under a different kind of pressure from her husband, Philip, who, despite agreeing early in their relationship not to have children, seems to have changed his mind. In Jin's liminal state, she can't help but ponder the story passed down through her family about a curse on them originated by a long-ago kisaeng--a girl sold into courtesanship. (The profane kisaeng cuts into the narrative from time to time to tell her own story.) The curse foretells that Jin will steer her life into ruins; it's just as she's pondering how this could unfold that she meets Lidija Jung. Korean like Jin, Lidija gave herself that name as a child when she devoted her life to ballet. Immediately, the women are drawn to each other; through Lidija, Jin will learn about freedom from shame and expectation--and the consequences, both elating and frightening, of that same freedom. As ever, Kwon's style may divide readers. In a book all about image and presentation, the baroque sentences make conceptual sense. But at the level of plot, the writing is often clipped and elliptical, withholding a great deal when it comes to action. Like overexposed photographs, this strategy is both luminescent and obfuscating: It can be hard to see to the heart of the matter. Nevertheless, Kwon's novel is a muscular and intelligent examination of the layers of Jin's identity. A bold, tough novel that invites the viewer's gaze and stares defiantly back. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
