(3/8/2020)
Format: Audio CD
If I am fortunate, two to three books a year will stop me in my tracks, mid stream (where I must catch my breath, take an emotional inventory, start over, or just the stop) of the twenty to thirty books I read annually.
I remember them all; Kirkwood's "Some Kind of Hero" (not the movie), Conroy's "Prince of Tides" & "The Great Santini", McMurtry's "Some Can Whistle" (by far his best). Recently? "All the Light We Cannot See", Tart's "The Goldfinch", Larry Brown's "Fay" & "Joe", Rick Bass' "Winter", "The Art of Racing in the Rain"...etc, etc. You get the picture, eclectic taste, hardly a scholar or critic.
When I opened the "Orphan Master's Son" by Adam Johnson, I read the first three paragraphs and slammed it shut. I then traveled to the Dollar Tree and bought Lavender Ribbon. I wrapped the book, crossing it horizontally and vertically several times before tying a tight naval knot dead center, requiring a knife or pry-bar to enter.
Immediately I found an unabridged Audio version for next day delivery.
The next morning I took the Fed-Ex package, threw my bag in the back seat and headed West out of Nashville (without any destination selected or suggested).
My journey underway, I inserted the CD. Quickly, the Daily Radio Broadcast for all of the citizens of the Democratic Party of North Korea began. The broadcast is hard wired into homes, apartments, public buildings, open squares, factories, museums, government buildings, restaurants, hospitals, on trucks and cars driving down roads or parked by farm workers. EVERYONE hears it; everyone MUST HEAR IT.
I began to snicker, the absurdity, the laugh out loud content; this book was satire-a comedy. Then it changed. Not the message, not the tone, not the intent; my heart changed. In thirty seconds my mind flooded with denial. Emotions pricked the hairs on the back of my neck, desperation charged my nervous system. This is too real, too uncomfortable for serious consideration. I drove straight to Oklahoma City, stopping once for fuel, never STOPPING "The Orphan Master's Son". Ten and one half hours of wonder, shock, fear and lamentations. I checked into my hotel and squirmed all night thinking about the People's Democratic Country of North Korea (the "freest" democracy in the world).
At dawn the next morning I drive thru Whataburger, got my Sausage/Egg Biscuits and headed towards Kansas City and then, Western Nebraska. The CD's clipped and exclaimed, the narrator was my friend, I knew him. I was with him as he tuned his ancient radio deep in the hull of the fishing vessel, searching radio transmissions from the ether, headphones tight. Searching for conversations that would assist the "Dear Leader", helping him lead the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea into a paradise on earth for his beloved citizenry. My compassion for the protagonist became familial. The future was shared. I may have been in Northwestern Nebraska but my chest (above my heart) was being tattooed by a Russian Ship Captain, perfecting a likeness of Sun-Moon, the National, beautiful actress of North Korea, so chaste, so virginal, I would (metaphorically) carry it on my chest forever. The paradox that IS North Korea is infuriating...no it's perfectly sensible...no it's expected...no...it is about people, like you and me, seeking true identity. We are all orphans in one sense or another, seeking validation, seeking...? Love. It IS the human condition. This book has stuck with me. No, it's entered my soul. I finished the book somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, Northwest of Lander, Wyoming. Now I must return east, to Nashville, much wiser, with a huge sense of loss. My tattoo, my visits to Section 42 and the "machine"? They will remain...forever.
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