The Interpreter

by Suki Kim

A striking first novel about the dark side of the American DreamSuzy Park is a twenty-nine-year-old Korean American interpreter for the New York City court system. Young, attractive, and achingly alone, she makes a startling and ominous discovery during one court case that forever alters her family's history. Five years prior, her parents--hardworking greengrocers who forfeited personal happiness for their children's gain--were brutally murdered in an apparent robbery of their fruit and vegetable stand. Or so Suzy believed. But the glint of a new lead entices Suzy into the dangerous Korean underworld, and ultimately reveals the mystery of her parents' homicide.An auspicious debut about the myth of the model Asian citizen, The Interpreter traverses the distance between old worlds and new, poverty and privilege, language and understanding.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Thriller, Asian Literature, Mystery Thriller

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

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. She has been traveling to North Korea as a journalist since 2002, and her essays and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, and the New York Review of Books. Born and raised in Seoul, she lives in New York.

Her debut novel The Interpreter is a murder mystery about a young Korean American woman, Suzy Park, living in New York City and searching for answers as to why her shopkeeper parents were murdered. Kim took a short term job as an interpreter in New York City when working on the novel to look into the life of an interpreter. The book received positive critic reviews and was named a runner up for the PEN Hemingway Prize, as well as winning the PEN Beyond Margins Award and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. The Interpreter was translated into Dutch, French, Korean, and Japanese.

Reviews

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The interpreter, however, is the shadow. The key is to be invisible. She is the only one in the room who hears the truth, a keeper of secrets.”



I ended up liking Suki Kim’s The Interpreter quite a lot; however after the opening chapters (which helped establish the personality and some quirks of the heroine, Suzy Park) it took considerable time before I felt engaged in the story. That might be the only complaint I have with this novel. The writing was good and the story, once it kicked into gear, was compelling. The mystery of the story was really a mystery of identity. Who is Suzy Park? Are her parents and sister really who she thinks they are (or were)? In that respect, it reminded me somewhat of a Haruki Murakami novel where you have this history which doesn’t always make sense unless you somehow make it personal. And to engage in history at a personal level is always potentially dangerous. Looking forward to reading more from Suki Kim!

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"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.

[Supreeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Interpreter is written by a Korean author in English. It's melancholic, glum, pessimistic, has a Korean MC, and is set in New York—everything that I'm supposed to like. I did like all of these things, I even liked the main character who is built to be unliked. The writing is perfect and I can place this in a list of all the NewYork novels (CITR, Fuck-up, Bright Lights Big City, Gatsby, American Psycho etc), but I guess it would've worked better as a novella. If there's another book by Suki Kim, I'd pick it up without any hesitation. That'd leave this book at 3.5.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who are interpreters? Those who convey the meaning of what is said in one language in another? Or those who interpret one way of life to another?

Suzy Park makes a living as an interpreter. Her job is to translate the questions that the lawyer asks Korean people who are not conversant in English and also interpret their replies. Interpreting comes naturally to her. She spent her life doing it. Her parents could speak only Korean and she and her older sister Grace habitually translated to and fro for them.

Until she left home, kicked out by her father when he found out that she was sleeping with a married man. Some years after this, her father and mother were killed in their store, shot through the heart. Suzy goes into a tailspin. She is heartbroken that she never got a chance to make up with her parents. What's more, her sister Grace has cut off all ties with her.

She flounders through life until one day she chances upon a man who mentions her parents during his deposition. There is more to the murder of her parents than meets the eye. Only a person who knows the nuances of the way a Korean thinks can solve this tangled mess. In the process we get to see the messy underbelly of illegal immigrants, caught in a corner, working hard but never really making it. Some fall into depression and some turn to unsavory acts to survive.

While the first generation of immigrants is trying to make ends meet and survive in a country where everything is alien to them, the children have a task of their own. Part of them wants to blend in to the American culture, part of them wants to stay true to their own culture. They are forever at odds with their own selves.

How fast you go though a novel depends on how interesting you find it. I was barely able to put down the book. (My kindle actually.) I am still a little panda-eyed from having stayed up to finish the book.

The book starts slow and you wonder why the protagonist, Suzy, is so full of angst. Soon we are in thick of things.

Even though the book is about murder and the mystery surrounding it, it cannot be called a thriller.
It can be called a noir psychological murder mystery which has to be solved, not so much by chasing after things, as by interpreting the events that have taken place in the past.





"The interpreter, however, is the shadow. The key is to be invisible. She is the only one in the room who hears the truth, a keeper of secrets."

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is unusual to find a book in which I have no idea, right up until the end, where it's headed; for that reason alone, it gets three stars right out of the gate. I just finished reading it and I'm really unsettled by the experience. It certainly isn't a happy story, but it is an incredibly effective and affecting one.

It starts slow, but was odd enough that curiosity kept me going. I'd never met somebody quite like Suzy Kim in literature before, and was intrigued. By the end, I rather hope that I never meet anyone like Suzy Kim or her family in real life; although presented sympathetically, the protagonist really is kind of a monster. But wow, there's some beauteous moments in this book. No spoilers here, but I think the most stunning moment occurred during a conversation with a four-year-old girl in a church. This story was masterfully told.

*******SPOILERS BELOW*************



********SERIOUSLY, DON'T READ FURTHER IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK**********

Interesting how the 'interpreter' in this book ended up being Grace and not Suzy, from an importance point of view. I am really seriously in awe of how this book was put together, and hope 0% of it was pulled from the author's actual life experience.

[Sarah Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

confession: I like books that have unhappy characters or situations when the author doesn't try to either deny the sadness or fix it too prettily. The Interpreter combines the plot of a mystery with the lethargy of depression. that may not sound like a good thing, but it's refreshing and real and well paced.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this novel. Within the first chapter or two, I was captivated. I cannot tell you what did it for me. I did not initially even like the main character of this mystery: Suzy Park, a 29 year old interpreter who came to the US as a child and cannot seem to find a life because she cannot make sense of where and who she comes from. Perversely, she is not "nice." She is talented and attractive, though not so much as her estranged sister Grace. Someone has sent her white irises each year on the anniversary of her parents' death. But recently there are other arrivals—police wanting to talk to her, hang-up calls, and her sister . . .

How she meets the man in her life: "The Korean side brought their own translator, but Michael's firm hired Suzy as a back-up. It was one of Suzy's first interpreting jobs, and she masked her nervousness with cool detachment. During the lunch break, Michael turned to her and asked, 'Miss Park, are you allowed to smile on duty?' " I'm sorry it's not a brilliant passage dripping literary eloquence. What these sentences offer is reality. What it offers is a woman willing to accept what is offered.

I like Eve's choice of quotation from another review here: "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.”

And that is the key. This is very much a character-driven mystery. Revelations about events do not overwhelm revelations about character. What I understood about the people in the story was what caught me, but it is true I love a good mystery. It is just that very few mysteries are this well written. I think it is easy to forget that there IS a mystery. I did not even think of it that way until I was past the middle of the book.

I was briefly thrown out of the story by the first person narrator's detailed explanation, such as of Korean immigrants and of the role of interpreters, but while my mind stepped away from the story to think about what I had learned, I did not mind. The quick detours into exposition were *interesting*! There is no doubt I believed her. I trusted her because her story made sense to me, and I cared how it would turn out.

The novel also made me feel I was in New York City, with an intimacy and detail concerning various areas that I have never experienced before. Suzy takes trains and she tells us where and when and how long the journeys take. She reminds us that most New Yorkers do not have cars because they don't need them. I know this, or at least I have been told this many times. But as she negotiates a broad landscape, I understood that claim for the first time.

So. People. Places. Family drama. Korean culture. And a bit of a mystery. It's all good.

[Kkraemer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suzy is gorgeous. She wears the clothes bought by another woman's husband, the face of a scholar that didn't finish, the superiority of entitlement. She smokes. She is the main character, and she is despicable in irritating ways.

Not surprisingly, she is alone.

And her aloneness is a main character in this book. After introducing Suzy, things happen: they begin slowly and unwind step by step to reveal Suzy and her loneliness, her overwhelming sense of loss, and the mystery that must be solved. The story takes us through New York, elite schools, Korean markets, Korean culture, immigrants' lives, doubt, betrayal, and such loneliness that it aches even after the book ends.

Kim is, quite simply, an amazing writer. Her spare prose reflects spare existences in ways that make the reader long for something...anything...that is blossomy and pretty and lovely.

This is one of the best books I've read in a long, long time.

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read too many books by Korean/Korean-American writers, but I'm starting to think I should because I've had really good experiences with most of the Korean authors I have read. And The Interpreter is no exception. I had never even heard of it until seeing it on the library shelf, but after picking it up and giving it a try (as well as flying through it in only a few hours), I can say that it is one of the best books I have read so far this year and quite possibly one of the best mystery novels I have ever read.

It was exactly what I was looking for. The right blend of family drama, intrigue, bleak existences, and a bit of violence. The writing was dark but in an effortless way, which I really appreciate, and the whole novel just flowed so easily.

The Interpreter is about a woman named Suzy Park who is a Korean interpreter for the New York legal system. About ten years ago, her parents were killed in an apparent robbery of their fruit and vegetable story. Since then, Suzy and her sister Grace had been on their own, and the two women didn't talk to each other due to the family issues caused by Suzy being the mistress of two white men. At the beginning of the novel, Grace appears to be elusive and living a simple, quiet life, but after surreptitiously questioning a witness during a court hearing, Suzy learns that there may be a darker side to her deceased parents and distant sister. She begins navigating the complex social structure of the Korean American community in New York, and soon realizes that her family had more enemies than she ever would have thought. As the reader starts to unravel the mystery of the double homicide, Suzy is nearing end of her quest to discover who shattered her family apart. The conclusion is unexpected and the slightly ambiguous ending will add to the suspense of the story.

It is unfortunate that Kim has not written more books, because she really is an underrated, unknown author with a lot of talent. I believe later this year she will be releasing a non-fiction account of North Korean students, which sounds fascinating and I am eagerly anticipating it, but I also hope she writes more fiction because I don't want to wait another 11 years for another book .

To be honest, I have no idea what I would compare this novel to, not even a movie or anything. I know I say a lot of books are original (when sometimes they might not be, because I've only read so many books) and I hate when publishers try to sell their books as incredibly similar to other, usually popular, books ("If you liked The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, the Bible, Breaking Bad, and anything else that was successful in popularity and revenue, then you will love this knockoff of all of those from an author who only reads one genre." But I know I have basically no knowledge of Korean culture and literature. The extent of my knowledge is about a few years of Taekwondo, when my Grandmaster would tell us some stories of living in Korea. Kind of like how my Chinese teacher tells us stories about how they celebrate holidays in China and things like that, but I would never be able to understand what it is like being from one of those countries and assimilating into a community of immigrants who form a new society that could be inviting, or in the case of Suzy, not so inviting. A reviewer of this novel says Kim "fractures the image of the happy Asian immigrant"; I'm not naïve enough to think that all immigrants are happy and suddenly are given opportunity and freedom from their troubles once they come to America (probably the opposite in most cases), but I believe The Interpreter is one of the best examples you will find of what it is like for those people that face more hardships after immigrating.

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

edgier than Min Sook whatever's Free Food for Millionaires, Suki Kim's 2003 Interpreter makes no excuses for her post-college doldrums and her characters engage in more illicit sex without compunction. this is a Barnard girl! New York creates more gotham-y people than Harrrvard, a cooler and more streetwise sensibility. Kim's prose has the advantage of a more jaded and 'cooler' tone, resulting even in the first page in some neat prose. the thing flows. it has twists.

high 3/5, near 4. like many NY ethnic writers, Kim is fascinated by the minutiae of the Immigrant Experience, but whereas Oscar Wao broadens this out to post-modern word games and a true universal appeal (and hence bestseller status), Kim delivers straight fiction leavened only with some daring in stance and word choice. it's annoying that the 'ethnic writer' does not "get it" that majority writers are not 'celebrating' dominant culture. David Mitchell is not celebrating England or Englishishism (per intent). he is telling us a story, and somewhere along the line, purely unintentionally, the greater complexity/superiority of anglo-saxon culture is demonstrated, without any attempt or desire to do so. he is, furthermore, experimenting with form, with voice, with story-telling technique. the beat-up ethnic (particularly the Korean) is "responding back" to West culture with a sort of "I can be tough too" creation, but they're just delivering straight narrative, not seeing that they're missing the opportunity to elicit a new literature, a new consciousness, or a new literary breakthrough. there's no post-modernism here. there's no Dissociation Identity Disorder mind-screw. there's no Vonnegut iconclasm or Atwood slipstream creativity. it's just 3pm on a rainy sunday in montauk over and over again. korean fiction also heavily marked by "small store/ dry cleaner / fruit stand" perspective. Chang Rae Lee remains the only KA author to have successfully integrated this into a bigger than life novel. and unlike, say, 'invisible man,' there is no larger grasp of america. just another latte. just another montauk.

Suki Kim is still a leap skip and a jump ahead of free food for millionaires, but this is a passable work, and unnecessary for any but a specialist audience. near 4. does not have a stunner close. some notable skill in even the first page, 'neat' prose; 'edgy' prose, smart things done here and there. but Native Speaker still the benchmark here, and to some degree this book is a repetition. not an incompetent story-teller, but doesn't quite deserve the 4, and doesn't get deep into the skin of the reader.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A multi-layered mystery and character study. Suzy is a nuanced character, haunted by the deaths of her parents, the poor choices she has made in the past, and her lack of personal identity. Torn between her parents' Korean culture and the American culture that surrounds her, Suzy clearly wants something to define her. She wants to belong somewhere but doesn't know how. The plot of this novel is a mystery, and a satisfying one, too, but for me, this is really a great exploration of a character "stuck in a vacuum where neither culture moved nor owned her," trying to cope with loss and depression.

The only thing lacking nuance in this story is Suzy's gay roommate, who felt one-dimensional and unfortunately based in stereotype. It's all the more glaring to me because of how much care Suki Kim seemed to have put into the crafting of the rest of her characters and story. His appearances are brief, but he could have been much better.

[Mircalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

tradurre non sempre vuol dire comprendere


Suzy è una coreana trasferita con la sua famiglia a NY, i genitori vengono uccisi con due colpi di pistola nel loro negozio di frutta e verdura e lei, che non ci parlava già da tempo per via del fatto che l'avevano ripudiata a causa della sua storia scandalosa con un uomo sposato, si mette sulle tracce lasciate cadere dalla polizia la quale, a quanto pare, non ha nessuna voglia di indagare su un duplice omicidio di lavoratori emigrati...ma lei è un'interprete e quel che non hanno detto ai poliziotti gli altri coreani del ghetto sono abbastanza disposti a dirlo a lei...poi c'è anche Grace, la sorella perfetta, che invece sapeva già e non ha mai detto nulla...

thriller senza grosse pretese sullo sfondo del ghetto coreano di NY, la caratterizzazione culturale è buona ma non approfondita del tutto, è una storia che sarebbe potuta accadere anche a un qualsiasi altro immigrato negli Usa che cerca di farsi una vita lontano dalle sue radici...la storia in sè è semplice e credibile, ma non indelebile...

[Barry Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please join the Seoul Book and Culture Club for our first January meeting on Saturday 10th January. We will be joined by very special guest journalist and award winning novelist Suki Kim, author of ‘The Interpreter’ & ‘Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite.’ Our guest moderator for the event is Walter Foreman, host of the talk show ‘Inside Out’ on tbs eFM radio. (www.facebook.com/events/423883224451086/)

서울북&컬쳐클럽의 1월 모임에 초대합니다. 날짜는 2015년 1월 10일(토요일) 입니다. 이번 모임은 '통역가'와' '당신이 없으면 우리도 없다'의 저자이신 저널리스트이자 문학상 수상 소설가 '수키 김' 작가님과 함께합니다. (www.facebook.com/events/423883224451086/)

[V · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great exploration of what it means to be in between countries, to be lost in the gap of your parent's country and the one you live in. The pressures of immigrant life and how it effects the children of immigrants is not a uniquely Korean topic, but Suki Kim nuances her story to give a clear and moving picture of the Korean American Experience.

I really enjoyed this book and could barely put it down.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars perhaps a bit generous, but overall I liked the story and was never tempted to bail on it, although I wasn't sure going in whether I'd get enough traction.

Having lived in the NYC area for much of my life, I found the settings quite well done; though I haven't been to Montauk, I felt I got what visiting there off-season would be like. A plus that much of the action takes place outside Manhattan.

Discussing the characters is tricky as her parents are long-dead, and her sister never appears directly in the story (perhaps a bit of a spoiler, but unavoidable to mention). Fair to say that what Suzy feels she knows about them is shown to be woefully incomplete, with later info filling in gaps that never made sense to her. The relationships with married older men I found tedious, though they weren't central to the main plot. The secondary characters were done well, without resorting to cardboard stereotype.

Difficult for me to fully separate setting from plot in this one. However, the author uses the former well to advance the plot from location to location. Watching the mystery angle unfold is a bit like those crime shows with their whiteboards of notes and pasted clues that grow cluttered. Here, however, they come together almost suddenly, lightbulb style, near the end. In retrospect, the book is almost two stories: immigrant saga followed by a suspense thriller.

I'm going to throw in a piece of advice for future readers if they find the slow going frustrating: Suzy's sister, being older, was more aware of what was going on to explain the rebelliousness and hostility.

So, would I recommend the book? Yes, if approached as a novel primarily, not a full-length suspense thriller.

[Electra]

A fascinating read, a character I grew attached to, a beautiful writing style
a great first novel

Une lecture fascinante, un personnage dont je me suis sentie proche, un magnifique style, et voilà un premier roman incroyable

[libreroaming · Rating 3 out of 5]

The synopsis of a Korean American woman who accidentally stumbles on the mystery of her parents murder five years ago really does not accurately describe The Interpreter. Ironic in a way, because the novel is all about how expectations can be fraught with mistakes and there are things whose meaning are always out of comprehension's grasp.

The good is that Suki Kim has wonderful scenes and turns of phrases. There's a melancholy tone throughout that aches and you really do get into the skin and sadness that inhabits Suzy Park. The scene of the last deposition is really the emotional payoff of the novel, with Suzy as the witness but finally understanding the interplay of what goes on. It is the perfect blend of emotion, symbolism and character development.

The bad is that it drags. The more compelling story of how Suzy deals with her troubled relationships regarding her parents and especially he sister are often overshadowed by retreading of her romances with older, married men. In fact, it takes more than half the novel for Suzy to actually even begin to examine the evidence that her parents' murder was more than it seemed, opting instead to meander through Suzy's romantic complications and hang ups. Meanwhile, the actual plot of the whodunnit is sparse, padded out and largely held up by the uncommunicative nature of the participants.

The Interpreter at its most effective is a study of culture and loneliness seen through the fractured set up of a person who was orphaned literally and figuratively by her family's behavior. The plot is more a frame that allows Kim to segue from one scene to the other, and the best parts come as observations rather than a culmination of the other elements. Best read in moody introspective moments, but people who want tightly paced stories with proactive motion should find something else.

[Cornelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book really gripping. The mystery didn't get going right away (and once it did, it was stunning), but the protagonist just drew me in and I wanted to know everything there was to know about her life. Something about her imperfections and complexities, the way she half-existed in so many worlds, really grabbed me, made me feel for her. I loved the glimpses into the Korean immigrant experience (so different, yet in many ways so similar to my own and I imagine the wider immigrant experience). I liked that none of the characters were wholly likable, wholly redeemable, yet they were for the most part still sympathetic (kind of like the characters in Gillian Flynn novels). I also enjoyed and admired the writing style, and the skillful way in which Kim weaved between past and present, visceral experience and dreamlike memory, as well as how measured and unsentimental the language was.

[Laura Barmby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hard to like this book for me because I didn't like the character very much. It was interesting learning something about the Korean immigrant culture but I didn't really care so much what happened to the character's parents because I didn't like her. The book just ends with a somewhat suspenseful incomplete story and while at first that was annoying, I found that I got over it quickly because I didn't ultimately care. I realize that the way she is was related to her upbringing but so what, she has made some stupid and self centered choices as an adult and I didn't really need to see if she resolved her issues.

[Kathleen Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suki Kim is an amazing writer. The Interpreter tells the story of a young Asian American woman trying to find crumbs from her dysfunctional childhood that would validate her existence. The protagonists journey was full of pain and sorrow, and hard for me to read, but well worth the journey. I so wanted her to find the truth about what happened to her parents, and where her estranged sister had gone. Her profound aloneness, and struggle to find herself, was palpable. As a Caucasian, it hurt my heart knowing how cruel America can be toward immigrants. The brilliance of using the interpreter to tell these story cannot be understated.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorites. Chilling and dark.

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional bagage. Emotional damage. The encyclopedia of pain and sadness. This book is filled with a beautiful sadness, grief, and the artful yearning of childhood. This book does such an amazing job at exploring immigrant life, the cultural boundaries of language, and personal suffering as a result of grieving familial death. Kim's writing is so succinct and perfectly curated in a way to establish a sort of melancholic atmosphere. This was really an amazing book, I'm so glad I picked it up. As someone who loves translated literature, this is definitely a must read! Be prepared to cry a lot though...

[JumbleofJargon · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Interpreter is written in a morose, melancholy tone. I oscillated between loathing and pitying the main character, Suzy. We're introduced to a 29 year old woman, who appears depressed and has made several bad choices. That tended to be the source of the loathing feelings I felt toward Suzy. I couldn't understand the choices she made. Her character felt hollow to me, straddling the fence between life and death, doing the bare minimum to not get stuck on the dead side of the fence.

Depression can feel like wanting to do , to shop, to cook, to socialize, to go to a pet store and play with the puppies, but not being able to do what once brought joy. Like being held back by weights, all you can do is lie motionless, maybe muster enough energy to watch Netflix and see others doing all the things you want to do.

Suzy Park has no desire, no wish to do anything. She wants her life to be different but even doesn't think about, let alone act on what needs to be done to initiate change, to induce regular intervals of contentment. Forgive me if this too may be a component of depression, I am not aware of, but I found this incredibly frustrating.

Things finally started to happen around page 250. The first 200 pages oscillate between of reflecting on what happened in the past and the monotonously aggravating present. The mystery was interesting page ~250 and beyond. The ending was lacking because although questions were answered, the relationship between Suzy and her sister, Grace - the dysfunction of such was discussed throughout the novel - is incredibly uncertain. We have no idea if the sisters will change their lives after understanding what was confounding for many years.

In spite of the intriguing mystery, I though many time, mid page, mid paragraph mid sentence, about whether the first frustratingly boring 200 pages are necessary. Upon finishing the novel I can't say they were. This in addition to the dull, dead writing and the lack of closure at the end is why I gave The Interpreter a low rating.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can understand how this book gained critical attention -- its particular lens on the immigrant experience in America is entirely free of cliche. When you look at the back cover and read that it is about a daughter of Korean immigrants in New York City, you'll have all kinds of vague ideas of what an author will inevitably do with that scenario, but Kim will not do any of those things that you expect. So -- much respect to her for that.

However, I can also understand how this book winds up with only mediocre reviews on goodreads. It can't exactly make up its mind whether it wants to be a lyrical meditation on the radical ungroundedness of being the child of an immigrant, or whether it wants to be a gripping murder mystery. And while I admire its ambition for trying to combine the two, it really doesn't pull it off very well.

If you're going to pick up this book, I advise approaching it more as a dreamy lyrical meditation on the experience of immigration than as a mystery novel. It just doesn't do plausibility very well. Or even exposition. And I couldn't figure out if the dialogue was so very non-mimetic on purpose (perhaps the author trying to say something about the unreliability of the act of interpreting other people's words?) or whether it was just the product of a first-book author who wasn't really very good at writing dialogue.

I suspect another reason to read it is its obsessively detailed attention to NYC and associated boroughs' geography. Never does its heroine make a move without the narrator chiming in to tell you exactly what block of Morningside Ave she's on. I'm not convinced that served the coherence of the book, but I can see that providing real enjoyment for those familiar with the area.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Nabokov... If he hated America so much, does that mean that he loves Russia?"

" I don't believe he did. I don't believe he was capable of that kind of love or hate for the country. He was too selfish. You can see that in his writing. He picked each word as though entire life was at stake. He was notorious for jotting down every thought on three-by-five index cards. His life was a string of exile, from England to Germany to France to America to Switzerland. It was right after renouncing Russian that he threw this verbal masturbation of a novel called Lolita at the American public. Here's this Russian guy who's only been living in U.S for a decade or so, tripping on English prose like Faulkner on acid!

Russia versus America would've been to simple for Nabokov. If he'd beet tortured, which I believe he was, then it was about something less obvious. The Cold War might have contributed, but his oddness, that something which doesn't quite add up about him, goes way deeper. No, I'm not talking about the sexual perversity of his book, which is hardly relevant, but something else, the neatness, the systematic design of his life, like those index cards. Did you know that he lived exactly twenty years on each continent? Twenty years in Russia, twenty in Western Europe, twenty in America, before his final attempt in the neutral Switzerland, where he ended up dying on his seventeenth year? If he had lived, would he have moved again once he filled his twenty-year quota? Where would he have gone?"

[Isabella Diocson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story of an unsolved death haunting the daughters who were left behind, told in the perspective of one of the daughters, Suzy, who had been estranged from her family for years prior to the murder of her parents. Also abandoned and deliberately forgotten by her sister who was her only known relative, she was left to find the answers on her own.
Although this story wasn't outstanding and brilliant, it had a haunting and gripping quality which will take the reader back to the very core of their being and leave them thinking deeper of their identity (cultural-wise). Korean daughters whose family migrated to America in pursuit of the American dream. With both cultural aspects ingrained in them without the feeling of belonging to a single culture, we get a glimpse of the decisions they make and the life they chose in regards with this huge gap of cultural identity. Although we neglect it, this book takes us back to the fundamental realization that culture and family background can have a crucial effect on how we decide and act upon our lives.

[Ajla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heavy on character, weak on plot. The mystery was ok but needed better execution. The only parts I resonated with were the few paragraphs of the autor explaining how it is to be an interpreter, because I work as an interpreter myself.

[Derodidymus · Rating 3 out of 5]

not good, not bad.
(probabil e si vina mea ca nu citesc descrierile cartilor inainte de a le incepe, insa ma ghidez dupa coperta, titlu, autor. astfel, ma astept ca universul sa ma surprinda, dar de cele mai multe ori ajung sa citesc carti mediocre/banale= bune. 3 stele inseamna o carte buna si cam atat)

despre Suzy, in varsta de 29-30 de ani, parte dintr-o familie imigranta (stabiliti in america; nu este explicat vreodata de ce au ales sa plece din coreea? sau poate nu tin eu minte??). Suzy traduce pentru acuzati in tribunal (din coreeana in engleza). Singurul lucru cat de cat interesant a fost cum autoarea a jonglat cu acest concept de traducator- interpretarea nuantelor, cuvintelor, emotiilor etc. in diverse contexte. totusi mi-ar fi placut mai mult daca povestea se concentra pe acest aspect si nu pe moartea parintilor, misterul din spatele mortii lor, relatia dintre cele doua surori (Suzy si Grace). aici e vina mea ca nu am citit descrierea inainte.
mi-am dat seama ca nu imi plac povestile despre familii? relatii intre frati/ surori, pentru ca in majoritatea celor citite exista intotdeauna (chiar daca surorile/ fratii nu se inteleg) o intelegere mutuala, de parca te intelegi 'in duh' cu fratele doar pentru ca sunteti rude de sange??? and it just seems very stupid to me idkk

prima jumatate mi-a placut mai mult, dar dupa meeeeh.
si apoi relatia ei amoroasa, cu acel final deloc satisfacator si foarte tampit??? bleeeah

[nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incroyable, entre histoire familiale déchirante rythmée par l’injustice sociale entre ethnies du New York des années 2000 et style d’écriture magnifique, le livre m’a beaucoup plu! je recommande vivement. Il nous amène à la réflexion de nos statuts sociaux et au fait que nous sommes privilégiés. De plus la culture américano-coréenne présente dans le livre est basée sur le cadre historique de la Guerre de Corée, ce qui permet de développer une certaine connaissance sur les deux cultures. L’autrice possède un vrai talent pour laisser les lecteurs plus qu’étonnés ou subjugués ou sidérés à chaque fin de chapitre.

je n’ai pas mis 5/5 car l’histoire reste quand même à certains endroits compliquée à suivre et le début du livre paraît un peu déroutant au premier abord à cause de la prose du livre.

[Lauren (Lalas.polyglot.library) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb was really promising but then, the story was so underwhelming... Suzy keeps ramblings on a lot of random memories or on her very toxic relationships but nothing relevent seems to happen. I wish the author would have dug deeper into her parents' case, their life as immigrants in the US or Suzy's job as an interpreter... If the goal was to make the readers feel as empty as Suzy, good job. Otherwise, I don't really see the point of this story.