Our Happy Time

May 26, 2014
Bestselling South Korean author Gong’s first novel to be translated into English presents the dramatic, not to say melodramatic, story of two unlikely friends helping each other find peace and forgiveness. Former pop star Yujeong, still haunted by a dark childhood secret despite her wealth and success, wakes up in a hospital bed after her third suicide attempt. Her aunt Monica, a strict yet loving nun, offers Yujeong a choice: she can begin a monthlong, in-hospital course of treatment or return to her home—but if she chooses the latter, she must accompany Monica on her weekly visits to the death row inmates at Seoul Detention Center. Desperate to evade therapy, Yujeong opts to go with her aunt. It is on death row that she meets convicted murderer Jeong Yunsu, who grew up in severe poverty. Despite very different backgrounds, the two feel an affinity in their shared, deep sense of pain. They begin to open up to each other, in the process moving toward forgiveness of those who have hurt them, and acceptance of the Christian faith that Monica gently urges on them. Yujeong and Yunsu’s unlikely friendship plays out in overwrought, clichéd fashion, but with moments of beauty. Many readers will find the tone overly preachy, but Gong’s sincerity at times breaks through the heavy-handed moralizing.

May 15, 2014
Two flawed individuals form an unlikely bond in this story of love and forgiveness set in South Korea. Yunsu suffered dreadful abuse and neglect as a young child, became schooled in the criminal arts as an adolescent, and ended up a convicted murderer on death row. Yujeong had a privileged childhood, studied art in Paris, and became a college professor. But a traumatic event when she was 15 led her to try to take her own life repeatedly. After her third suicide attempt, Yujeong has the choice of being hospitalized or helping her beloved Aunt Monica, a nun, and she takes the latter option, accompanying her aging aunt to meetings with death-row prisoners. First-person chapters alternately reveal the backstories of the two primary characters up to the trauma that damaged Yujeong and the crimes that led to Yunsu's capture as their weekly meetings open their hearts to greater understanding and the possibility of forgiving. The first of Gong's novels to be published in English, this is a moving story with a religious bent and a strong view on capital punishment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)