A searing look at depression, loneliness, and the hollowness of a culture that worships vitality while sucking people dry, Song’s (Chlorine, 2023) second novel is a high-stakes, slowly unfolding examination of what makes life worth living, offering dark comedy and a dash of hope amid despair.
Intense ... Song's fiction clearly benefits from their filmmaking/artist background; the camera-ready scenes are rife with exquisite visual details ... They write with unhindered vulnerability, of course about death, but also about exhaustion and tenacity, resignation and struggle, abandonment and trust.
For patient readers the ending will give catharsis, but the plot can get muddled in the serpentine musings about depression. Still, many will be eager for Song’s second book and will relate to Vicky’s struggle to attain happiness under capitalism.
