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Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite, by Suki Kim
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Review
A New York Times Bestseller"Chilling…reminds us that evil is not only banal; it is also completely arbitrary."—New York Times Book Review"Quasi-apocalyptic, but amazingly not speculative…I devoured [it] for its wry and rare observations on that inexplicable land."—Daniel Handler, Wall Street Journal "Daring...Kim finds that paranoia is contagious — and can become chillingly routine. 'My little soldiers were also little robots,' she writes before departing, mourning not only that she must leave, but that they must stay."—Boston Globe"Remarkable…A deeply unsettling book, offering a rare and disturbing inside glimpse into the strangeness, brutality and claustrophobia of North Korea… Kim's book is full of small observations that vividly evoke the paranoia and loneliness of a nation living in fear and in thrall to its 'Great Leaders'…Her portraits of her students are tender and heartbreaking, highlighting the enormity of what is at stake."—Chicago Tribune"A book about censorship, trust, fear, love, and truth, seen through the prism of a school that functions as a comfortable prison…The title comes from a song the students sing in honor of 'The Dear Leader,' including the lyric, 'Without you, there is no us.' Within that title, and this book, is a multitude of truths."—Philadelphia Inquirer"Sometimes personal histories retain a potent electromagnetic force, [like] Suki Kim's rivetingly topical look inside the most isolationist country on earth."—Vogue"Enthralling...Reveals the perplexing innocence and ignorance of one of the world’s most secretive countries."—O: The Oprah Magazine"A devastatingly vulnerable account... Kim’s stark and delicate language, intertwined with the suspense of being an undercover journalist in a foreign-yet-familiar land, truly humanized North Korea for me."—Slate"Touching, beautifully written...A rare, intimate portrait of life in the world’s least-known country: grinding poverty for the masses, bland tedium for the ruling class, no fun, no freedom, and fear for all."—Katha Pollitt, Salon“[Kim’s] account is fascinating…She is an outsider telling an inside story…Her relationship with her students is the most interesting part of her book…It is tempting to treat the cult of the North Korean Kim dynasty as a grotesque joke, as the makers of The Interview, the recent Hollywood movie about an assassination plot against the current "Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un, have done. Suki Kim, quite rightly, does not. The oppression and starvation of millions of people, and a gulag that enslaves up to 200,000 prisoners, many of them worked to death, is really not that funny… Kim got a close look at some of the cult’s manifestations…Her frustration and rage about the waste of young lives and talent crushed by a horribly oppressive system is entirely justified. Being punished for dissent is bad enough. But to be forced to parrot lies and keenly applaud one’s enforcers is a form of constant mental torture.”—Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books"A vivid, uncompromising and intensely personal account." —Minneapolis Star-Tribune"A starkly revealing look at this hermit nation...Kim opens herself as well as the DPRK to scrutiny...Moving and emotionally evocative."—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"Offers great details about [the students’] blinkered worldview…A frank depiction of North Korean life."—Foreign Policy"Readers intrigued by Kim Jong Un's recent extended absence from public view can gain insight into the repressive system that shapes North Korea's ruling class from Suki Kim's new memoir." —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review"We in the West know almost nothing about life in North Korea, including even how its elites live (read Suki Kim's terrific Without You, There Is No Us for one of the few accounts)."—The Nation"Suki Kim’s compelling reports for Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, and others have expanded and deepened our understanding both of life in the North, and the West’s profound misapprehensions about it.…[This book is] a fascinating, if deeply fraught document about the education of the North Korean elite, an aspect of the country that until very recently has been almost completely occluded… Kim’s access to the boys constitutes the unique nature of her book [and] illuminates just how sheltered they are."—Los Angeles Review of Books"[An] extraordinary and troubling portrait of life under severe repression…[Kim’s] account is both perplexing and deeply stirring."—Publishers Weekly, starred review"A rare and nuanced look at North Korean culture, and an uncommon addition to the 'inspirational-teacher' genre."—Booklist, starred review"A touching portrayal of the student experience in North Korea, which provides readers with a rare glimpse of life in this enigmatic country...Well-written and thoroughly captivating."—Library Journal, starred review"Strangely terrifying…A beautifully written book that greatly expands the limited bounds of what we know about North Korea’s ruling class." —Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy"Terrifying and sublime, Without You, There Is No Us is a stealth account of heartbreak. Suki Kim, brilliant author of The Interpreter, penetrates the soul of her divided country of origin, bearing witness to generations of maimed lives and arrested identities. This look inside totalitarian North Korea is like no other." —Jayne Anne Phillips, author of Lark and Termite and Quiet Dell"This superb work of investigative journalism is distinguished by its grave beauty and aching tenderness. So skilled is Suki Kim in conveying the eeriness and surreal disconnect of the North Korean landscape that I sometimes felt I was reading a ghost story, one that will haunt me with its silences, with its image of snow falling upon a desolate campus, with the far laughter of her beloved students." —Kiran Desai, author of The Inheritance of Loss "Like an explorer returned from a distant planet or another dimension, Suki Kim has many extraordinary tales to tell, among them how different—and how awful—life is for those who live in North Korea. The devil is in the details here, for her gritty narrative focuses on everyday events to reveal how repression shapes daily life, even for the most privileged. Yet Kim also bears witness to that part of the human soul that no oppressor can ever claim." —Carlos Eire, author of Waiting for Snow in Havana "In language at once stark and delicate, Suki Kim shatters the polemic of North and South Korea. She couples an investigative reporter's fierce desire to strip away the fiction of the Hermit Kingdom with an immigrant's insatiable hunger for an emotional home, no matter how troubled and no matter how impossible." —Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt "Combining a great novelist's eye for character and a skilled journalist's grasp of politics, Without You, There Is No Us helps us understand North Korea like nothing else I have ever read or watched. The elegance of Kim's prose and her great compassion for ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary situation kept me turning the pages, riveted by her story. This is a book that rejoins North Korea with humanity." —Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City "What a unique book this is! It delivers a beautifully and bravely observed inside account—startling, insightful, moving—of the planet's most notoriously closed and bewildering society. But what I liked best about it was being in the company of Suki Kim's voice—so intimate, vulnerable, obsessive, resilient, confiding and charming." —Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name and The Interior CircuitFrom the Hardcover edition.
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About the Author
Suki Kim is the author of the award-winning novel The Interpreter and the recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Open Society fellowships. Her essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. Born and raised in Seoul, she lives in New York.From the Hardcover edition.
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Product details
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books; Reprint edition (October 13, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307720667
ISBN-13: 978-0307720665
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.3 out of 5 stars
736 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#40,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Clicking on a rating that translates into "I love it" is a bit weird with this book. While I believe it earns five stars, saying "I love it" seems inappropriate for a book that is so disturbing. Ms. Kim pains a very painful but very vivid picture of North Korea; it seems a truly barren country in all senses of the word - so much so that at times it's like reading a non-fiction version of 1984, with speakers blaring at you all the time and everyone spying on everyone.I note that some of the critical reviews questioned the inclusion of so much about Ms. Kim in this book, but it is subtitled "A Memoir," and to have written about the school in the Pyongyang "suburbs" without including something about herself would have been to extend the severity and sterility of the country to include herself; frankly, I found it refreshing - or, rather, humanizing - to include something of herself. I also noted reviews that chastised her for possibly harming the other teachers at the school because they will be "found out". I suppose there's some validity to that criticism, but how else could anyone write about a society as closed as that of North Korea? Anyway, it makes the book a bit more interesting.A very chilling book but very important for that very reason.
Ultimately, this book commits the cardinal sin (I'm not religious, but that term feels all too appropriate given the book's setting) of assuming the reader cares more about the author than about North Korea. Allow me to explain.Although the book labels itself as "A Memoir", Suki Kim has claimed in interviews that the "Memoir" description was an unwanted addition by her publisher. She asserts that her book is a piece of investigative journalism to be approached as such. However, few people familiar with investigative journalism would likely agree that the style and structure of this book fit that genre. It's very clearly a memoir in form, although certainly the manner in which she gathered her information qualifies as journalistic. She seems to have taken very detailed notes during her time there, despite apparently not having done much research in preparation for fitting in with evangelicals (for example, she doesn't know that communion usually occurs once a month, instead musing that it "took place only occasionally, for some reason"). Regardless, the book fails to present a remarkable example of either genre.Without You, There is No Us is written in a very personal voice that initially serves as an effective vehicle for the reader's identification with the author. Yet as the book progresses, the tone becomes increasingly melodramatic and self-pitying, even straying into self-indulgent melancholy (remember, she chose to go there and return for a second semester). In the beginning of the book, the personalization of the story adds depth, with her stories of how her family was affected by the Korean war. Her description of later immigrating to the US adds needed context to her later experiences in North Korea, although details of her adjustment to this new life are seriously lacking. Her experiences as a South Korean living in NK give her a few interesting insights, such as when she explains North Korea's "bastardization" of the Korean language, although she doesn't detail too many additional differences between the North and South Korean cultures. She instead generally writes from a very American viewpoint, particularly regarding her perception of her students, and often prefers to focus inward rather than on the people around her. This leads to some very one-dimensional characterizations of the people she encounters, particularly her co-workers, contributing to what I mentioned in the very beginning of this review: she overestimates how big her role should be in this story from the audience's perspective.Consequently, the book all too often veers into both mind-numbing mundanity and oversharing personal details. Her constant mention of her nameless, faceless "lover" in New York is a particularly egregious example: "In that world, I needed a lover, no matter how abstract, and that need drove me crazy some nights." ...Okay, so you went a couple months without getting laid? Cry me a river, most people have the occasional dry spell. Seriously, she was at PUST for 2-3 months with a break between semesters, and hasn't given any characterization of this person that would lead us to care. This is exactly the kind of pretentious melodrama the book increasingly falls into as the story progresses, despite its promising beginning -- and a great example of why it's not exactly journalistic in presentation. The closest journalistic genre I could grant her writing is that of "gonzo journalism", but Hunter Thompson would have skewered this book.Toward the end of her second and final semester at PUST, Ms. Kim spends time finagling a way to show her students a Harry Potter film. She creates considerable expectations in the reader regarding this event: she manipulates, she gets into a screaming match with her colleague, and eventually secures the right to show the film. The dramatic tension is built quite well. Now, how did the students react to the movie? I have no idea. Ms. Kim doesn't tell us. She says that she showed it to her students, but then she simply jumps forward to the next event without providing any details regarding her students' reactions. This is an abject narrative failure and is disappointing on so many levels, depriving the reader of such a valuable opportunity to find out how North Koreans would respond to outside media.My review has been harsh, certainly. I read a much better book about North Korea immediately before reading this one, so perhaps my expectations were too high. However, there were great parts of this book and initially it showed incredible promise. My biggest regret about this book, unfortunately, isn't its considerable wasted potential: it's that, by the nature of its very existence, publishing this subpar text has likely rendered it impossible for another writer to ever see the school and give us another perspective on what life is like there. Suki Kim's storytelling is at its best when she describes what she sees, hears, or remembers; it's at its worst when she describes her feelings.I'll give this book the grade that I know my journalism mentor, a kick-ass investigative journalist who has written excellent undercover exposés of her own, would have given Ms. Kim: "C-. Some good ideas here, but please rewrite and resubmit."
This is a well written and captivating book about one person's longer term experience with a segment of North Korean culture.Had I not spent some time reading at least half a dozen previous books about North Korea, by escapees, journalists, and otherswith specific and long term ties to the nation/culture, I may not have understood where she was coming from, as it is clear manyof the snarky people giving their long winded reviews do not. Many in these reviews seem to have the expectation that she woulddeliver a story and narrative from the standpoint of a free world, mostly American culture. Her book triumphs in being able to take us through the looking glass to the mindset, near as she can, of their culture. It is no wonder , as a few have said "she didnt seem to get to know the boys"; or - "there is no individual personality coming out in the students" - Hey, part of the message is, they don't know themselves, and they had little if any opportunity to develop their own "individuality". NK is a puzzle, with many layers, and the author experienced one layerwithin the midst of a culture that reviews true throughout all the books I have read. I find her references to her "life back home" a necessary counterpoint to the sucking vampire like energy she had to endure in such a repressive place for weeks on end. This is no real reflection on her personally, it is just how it is there, and how it must feel to adjust to that mind blowingly different reality. I would recommend this book to those interested in deepening their understanding of North Korea, while also recommending other books to round out the picture and validate her observations to a deeper level of reader understanding.
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