The Interpreter: A Novel

Wonderfull read

"Being bilingual, being multicultural should have brought two worlds into one heart, and yet for Suzy, it meant a persistent hollowness. It seems that she needed to love one culture to be able to love the other. Piling up cultural references led to no further identification.”Suzy Park lives a compartmentalized, ghostlike life in her unfurnished Manhattan apartment. With no family to speak of, few friends and unhealthy relationships with unavailable men, Suzy finds comfort in her anonymous life as a Korean interpreter. Part of the “1.5 Generation”, Suzy reminisces about the difficulties she and her family had assimilating to life in New York upon arriving from Korea. Not allowed to forget the customs of a country she barely remembers, but never feeling American enough, Kim masterfully conveys the isolation and loneliness that confronts Suzy–this special group of adolescents and adults.On the fifth anniversary of her parents’ mysterious death, Suzy receives an ominous gift, followed by a series of unsettling coincidences. Her quest to find answers to long forgotten questions leads her to old neighborhoods and haunts from her youth. Along the way, she is thrown back into memories she’s been trying to escape for the last ten years. Did she really ever know her parents? Why hasn’t she grieved their deaths? Is she capable of love?I was so taken by Suzy’s loneliness and grief. Kim’s prose is so vivid that I can feel the protagonist’s heaviness weigh on my shoulders. Try this sentence on for size and see what I mean:“Nothing is as desolate as a late-autumn beach. The motels with “Vacancy” signs wear the dejected face of the abandoned. The fish-and-chips stands have pulled down their shutters, closed for the winter. Fickle and selfish, the rest of the world has skipped out.”Immigrant life is not an easy life, and I loved the way Kim eased me into Korean communities in Queens and Brooklyn. It was like virtual traveling! The mystery aspect of this novel kept me turning pages, but Kim’s prose was also outstanding. Many a time I found myself thinking how well crafted her analogies were. For example, Suzy is a Literature major in college, and I relished her bookish conversations with her friend about Nabokov and other authors, and the linear ties to artists like Van Gogh while conversing with her Art major roommate. It’s the details that just really tie this book up in a neat little bundle. Excellent read, and highly recommended. I’m looking forward to reading her memoir, Without You There Is No Us.

Suzy Park was not home when her parents were shot dead. She had run away four years earlier with an older professor, and her parents had disowned her. Her older sister Grace won’t talk to her either.Suzy translates Korean for the prosecution at court hearings. She starts learning things about her parents as she translates at these depositions. The Korean community in New York is not that large. There are lots of interconnections. Little by little she discovers all her family’s secrets — and they are shockers.This book gives an amazing picture of the immigrant experience in New York City. The narrative offers no humor, no wry ironies — just the sad facts. Suzy is an appealing character, with her talent for sensitive interpreting, her preference for married men, and her occasional bursts of courage.The ending was rather abrupt and not entirely clear. I wanted more details and clarity — but you can’t have everything. Essentially this is a very engaging novel.

it will keep you in gussing game,with build in curiosity till the end of the book. Annd emotional,suspenseful punch.

Suki Kim is an excellent writer. This was hard to put down. It's a murder mystery but also a story about immigrants and relationships. Sometimes it was difficult to follow as she drifts between what's happening in reality and what's happening in the main character's mind. I can't wait to read her next book!

Suzy's pathetic rebellion and search for her identity leads to her estranged sister as she seeks to know the real story of why their parents were gunned down in their Koreatown vegetable market.The pathos of self loathing is almost too much to read on and on about the girl's depressing, dead end life at such a young age.The few characters are well imagined and written.Looking to Suki's next story.

Nice first novel by Kim Suki (or to the average American, Suki Kim). I read her non-fiction work, "Without You There Is No Us", which is quite good. Would like to see more writing from her. "The Interpreter" is just a little slow to start, but stick with it. It's a dark, but intriguing read about Korean han, the immigrant experience, and complex relationships. Very complex.

I read this book after reading Kim, Suki's non-fiction work. All of her works have contributed to my culture awareness.

A very interesting read to all Asian literature fans.Suki Kim explores what is potentially her own background as a Korean child who arrives to the US. In this first novel of hers, her parents are illegal immigrants struggling to get by. There are some mob stories which make this novel an interesting thriller but the highlight of it is mainly what language is capable of translating (through the act of interpretation), what it fails to convey and the weight it has on people, mainly Suzy (the character's name) and her sister Grace.Highly recommended!

BUT the former owner of the book is apparently "Howard county library" with a surveillance tag. Can I get an explanation for that?