A note: Young-ha Kim has written a whole lot of other things, many of which are nothing like this book, so this review does not generalize to the rest of Kim's works.
I bought this along with The Other Side Of Dark Remembrance. I didn't like this book nearly as much, although I attribute that to being totally out of the targeted audience, rather than actual lack of merit. I do recommend this book to people who would enjoy it. It's seriously stream-of-consciousness, wandering here and there, so be forewarned. I probably wouldn't have bought the book if I'd actually known what I was in for, so I file this one under Broadening My Reading Horizons.
Also, I'd like to note, that's the catchiest title I've seen in ages.
The premise is revealed very early on so I don't consider this a spoiler. The arguable protagonist is a nameless man who gets paid to help people commit suicide. He wines & dines and chats them up and tries to nudge them towards offing themselves and paying him for the consultation. Kim isn't a psychologist (for all that the characters' motivations are about as opaque as those from a Russian novel, this isn't one), but he's very good at at character, at portraying how a number of different people are all detached from the world, seeking anything that can heighten reality for themselves, and by the way are completely perverse/disturbed/delusional in their own ways.
At one point the narrator tells an outrageous story to a woman and she is implied to believe it. Then the internal dialogue kicks in:
Sometimes fiction is easier to understand than true events. Reality is often pathetic. I learned at a very young age that it was easier to make up stories to make a point. I enjoy creating stories. The world is filled with fiction anyway.
Death is the ultimate reality that the narrator's clients find in the book, and the only solid anchor in the entire story.
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