Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

When an American GI shouted “Free adoptions!” and scooped up an armload of young gymnasts, Commander Ga sprang into action. Despite lacking the Dear Leader’s powers of dog defense, he did know taekwondo. “Charyeot!” he yelled to the Americans. That got their attention. “Junbi,” he then said. “Sijak!” he shouted. That’s when the kicks and punches began. Fists flying, he raced after the retreating Americans, fighting his way through jet wash, copper-jacket bullets, and ivory incisors to the accelerating aircraft.

Though the jet’s engines screamed with takeoff power, Commander Ga summoned his Korean fortitude, and using Juche strength, he chased the plane down and leaped up to its wing. As the jet rose from the runway, rising over Pyongyang, Ga pulled himself up and fought the harsh winds to the windows, where through the glass, he saw the Girl Rower laugh as the Americans in celebration blared South Korean pop music and, garment by garment, stripped Sun Moon of her modesty.

Dipping his finger in a bloody wound, Commander Ga wrote inspirational slogans on the plane’s windows, and to give Sun Moon some measure of resolve, he wrote in red, backward, a reminder of the Dear Leader’s eternal love for her, nay, of his love for every citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea! Through the windows, the Americans made angry gestures at Commander Ga, but none had the guts to climb out on the wing and fight him like a man. Instead, they accelerated the plane to astounding speeds, executing emergency maneuvers and aerial acrobatics to shake loose their tenacious guest, but no barrel roll was going to stop a determined Commander Ga! He dropped low and gripped the wing’s leading edge as the plane rose over the blessed mountains of Myohyang and over sacred Lake Chon, nestled in the frozen peaks of Mount Paektu, but finally he lost consciousness over the garden city of Chongjin.

Only the powerful reach of North Korean radar allows us to tell the rest of the story.

In the cold, thin air, Commander Ga’s frozen fingers kept a firm grip, yet the canines had taken their toll. Our comrade was fading. That’s when Sun Moon, hair disheveled, face bruised, came to the window and with the power of her patriotic voice sang to him, repeating verses of “Our Father Is the Marshal” over and over until, at just the right moment in the song, Commander Ga muttered, “Eternal is the Marshal’s flame.” Wind pulled freezing strings of blood from his lips, but the good Commander roused, repeating “Eternal is the Marshal’s flame” as he stood.

Braving the great winds, he made his way to the window, where Sun Moon pointed to the sea below. There, he saw what she saw: an American aircraft carrier aggressively patrolling our sovereign waters. He also saw a chance to finally evade the ghosts of past acts of cowardice. Commander Ga gave Sun Moon a crisp, final salute, then dove off the wing, making a missile of himself as he barreled downward, sailing toward the conning towers of capitalism, where, in the bridge, an American captain was surely plotting the next illegal sneak attack.

Do not imagine Ga falling forever, citizens. Picture Ga in a cloud of white. See him in a perfect light, glowing like an icy mountain flower. Yes, picture a flower towering white, so tall that it reaches down to pick you. Yes, here is Commander Ga, picked in his prime and lifted high. And there emerge—all is shining, all is bright—the clasping arms of Kim Il Sung himself.

When one Glorious Leader hands you to the next, citizens, you truly live forever. This is how an average man becomes a hero, a martyr, an inspiration to all. So do not weep, citizens, for look: a bronze bust of Commander Ga is already being placed in the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery! Dry your eyes, comrades, for generations of orphans to come will now be blessed with the name of both a hero and a martyr. Forever, Commander Ga Chol Chun. In this way, you’ll live forever.

Support for this book was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, and the Stanford Creative Writing Program. Portions of this book first appeared in the following publications: Barcelona Review , Electric Literature , Faultline , Fourteen Hills Review , Granta , Hayden’s Ferry Review , Playboy , Southern Indiana Review , Yalobusha Review , and ZYZZYVA . The author is also indebted to the UCSF Kalmanovitz Medical Library, where much of this book was written.

Thanks to my traveling companions in North Korea: Dr. Patrick Xiaoping Wang, Willard Chi, and the esteemed Dr. Joseph Man-Kyung Ha. Kyungmi Chun, Stanford’s Korean Studies Librarian, proved especially helpful, as was Cheryl McGrath of Harvard’s Widener Library. The support of the Stanford writing faculty has been invaluable to me, particularly Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Tallent, and Tobias Wolff. I’m grateful for Scott Hutchins, Ed Schwarzschild, Todd Pierce, Skip Horack, and Neil Connelly, all of whom read versions of this book and responded with sage advice.

This novel could have no finer editor and champion than David Ebershoff. Warren Frazier, as always, is the prince of literary agents. Special thanks go to Phil Knight, who made a student of his teacher. Special thanks also to Dr. Patricia Johnson, Dr. James Harrell, and the Honorable Gayle Harrell. My wife lends my work inspiration and my children its purpose, so thank you Stephanie, and thank you Jupiter, James Geronimo, and Justice Everlasting.

ADAM JOHNSON teaches creative writing at Stanford University. His fiction has appeared in Esquire , The Paris Review , Harper’s , Tin House , Granta , and Playboy , as well as in The Best American Short Stories . His other works include Emporium , a short-story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us . He lives in San Francisco.

EMPORIUM

PARASITES LIKE US

When I arrived at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport a few years ago, my head was still spinning from a landing on a runway lined with cattle, electric fences and the fuselages of other jets whose landings hadn’t gone so well. Even though I’d spent three years writing and researching The Orphan Master’s Son , I was unprepared for what I was about to encounter in “the most glorious nation in the world.”

I’d started writing about North Korea because of a fascination with propaganda and the way it prescribes an official narrative to an entire people. In Pyongyang, that narrative begins with the founding of a glorious nation under the fatherly guidance of Kim Il Sung, is followed by years of industry and sacrifice among its citizenry, so that when Kim Jong Il comes to power, all is strength, happiness and prosperity. It didn’t matter that the story was a complete fiction—every citizen was forced to become a character whose motivations, desires and fears were dictated by this script. The labor camps were filled with those who hadn’t played their parts, who’d spoken of deprivation instead of plenitude and the purest democracy.

When I visited places like Pyongyang, Kaesong City, Panmunjom and Myohyangsan, I understood that a genuine interaction with a North Korean citizen was unlikely, since contact with foreigners was illegal. As I walked the streets, not one person would risk a glance, a smile, even a pause in their daily routine. In the Puhung Metro Station, I wondered what happened to personal desires when they came into conflict with a national story. Was it possible to retain a personal identity in such conditions, and under what circumstances would a person reveal his or her true nature? These mysteries—of subsumed selves, of hidden lives, of rewritten longings—are the fuel of novels, and I felt a powerful desire to help reveal what a dynastic dictatorship had forced these people to conceal.