RaveThe RumpusI was startled by how beautifully Yoon writes about the horrifying: a bereaved woman repeatedly runs full force towards a cliff, stopping short of the edge in \'So That They Do Not Hear Us,\' a person is consumed by flames in \'Faces to the Fire,\' and a couple lovingly collects human body parts floating in the ocean in \'Among the Wreckage\' ... Characters from different social classes and historical moments move through the stories, ranging from a seawoman in her sixties to a young girl whose mother has just died to a middle-aged husband evaluating his life. Yoon convincingly inhabits these disparate characters, some of whom move through more than one story as the author shifts people and areas of the island into the background or foreground depending on the story ... Yoon somehow leaves space for his characters to experience dignity, or momentary pleasure, in the lives that are suggested beyond each story’s end.
