Michell's 'The Defections' a suspenseful political romp
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Hannel Michell uses the massive 2008 protests against U.S. beef imports as a backdrop to support a complex tale featuring North Korean defectors, spies and identity issues. / Korea Times
Hannah Michell
“The Defections” Quercus Editions
By Kim Young-jin
In her debut novel, Hannah Michell weaves together plotlines involving North Korean defectors and embassy intrigue, but the work isn’t inherently political.
Instead, “The Defections” focuses on the troubled behind-the-scene stories of its characters, whose lives intertwine against the backdrop of a tumultuous Seoul.
The book doesn’t add insight into well-trodden political issues, opting to be a suspenseful page-turner rather than historical fiction.
As such, it’s a very readable work with solid character development, one which uses politics as a jumping-off point for intrigue.
The story revolves around Mia Kim, a translator at the British Embassy in Seoul. The child of an English mother and a Korean father, who is in ill health, she’s been raised by her stepmother and her uncle, who runs a school for North Korean defectors.
Mia’s unstable nature becomes apparent when she develops an infatuation for Thomas, a diplomat.
Not only does she hinge her self-worth on his appraisals, she sneaks into his study to steal his notes, which she secretly pores over.
Thomas, meanwhile, is an alcoholic and nearly throws away his family’s foreign-service legacy when he gets into a car accident after a frenzied night in Itaewon.
Luckily for him, the ever-watchful Mia bails him out, covering up his indiscretions.
But the characters begin a collision course when Thomas is asked to produce a security audit on the embassy staff, and he learns of her connection to her uncle, who has a sketchy past.
A former protester against authoritarian rule, the uncle runs into problems when one of his students is found dead.
Another defector, an 18-year-old who was a friend of the deceased, begins staying with Mia’s stepmother, who learns the young man may be caught up in a risky venture that requires him to cross the border.
All this takes place against the backdrop of the massive 2008 protests against U.S. beef imports, adding an element of turmoil.
One interesting element is Mia’s struggles with identity.
Bullied as a child for being of mixed race, as an embassy worker she is nervous about making mistakes and “being banished from a world that could be her birthright.”
She finds solace in translation, as though “meanings could be salvaged across borders.”
When it comes to the embassy, where diplomats discuss the policy implications and pore over Amnesty International reports, some of the dialogue feels forced.
Still, Michell moves the story along with pace, and her descriptions of Seoul’s architecture as rather haphazard are a nice departure from platitudes about “dynamic” Korea.
For those who know Korea well, Defections will ring of familiar places and themes. For those who don’t, it gives a taste of the bustling capital and its politics.
In the end, it’s the characters and interwoven storylines that drive the plot forward.