Lemon

by Yeo-sun Kwon

Genres: General Fiction; Thrillers

Synopsis

Named a Most Anticipated Read of the Year by Ms. Magazine 

In this piercing psychological portrait of obsession, privilege, and justice, a woman haunted by her sister’s unsolved murder transforms herself in order to cope with the pain of absence and unknowing.   

In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, 18-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects quickly emerge: rich kid Shin Jeongjun, whose car Hae-on was last seen in, and delivery boy Han Manu, who witnesses Hae-on in the passenger seat of Jeongjun’s car just a few hours before her death. But when Jeongjun’s alibi checks out, and no evidence can be pinned on Manu, the case goes cold.   

Seventeen years pass without any resolution for those close to Hae-on, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she’s lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened.   

Shifting between the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on’s classmates struck in different ways by her otherworldly beauty, Lemon ostensibly takes the shape of a crime novel. But identifying the perpetrator is not the main objective here: Kwon Yeo-sun uses this well-worn form to craft a searing, timely exploration of class, jealousy, trauma, and how we live with the wrongs we have endured and inflicted in turn.   

Story Locale: 2002-2019 South Korea 

Contributor Bio(s)

 Kwon Yeo-sun was born in Andong, South Korea, and now lives in Seoul. In 1996, she received the Sangsang Literary Award for her debut novel, Niche of Green. Her subsequent novels and short stories have received numerous literary awards, including the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, Yi Sang Literary Prize, and the Oh Yeong-su Literature Award, among others. Lemon is her first novel to be published in English.   

Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. She received the 2018 TA First Translation Prize and the 16th LTI Korea Translation Award for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale, which was also a finalist for both the 2018 PEN Translation Prize and the 2018 National Translation Award. Her recent translations include Ha Seong-nan’s Bluebeard’s First Wife, Ancco’s Nineteen, and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass.   

Author Residence: Seoul, South Korea   

Author Hometown: Andong, South Korea

Release date: October 12, 2021

Publisher: Other Press

Sample

SHORTS, 2002

I imagine what happened inside one police interrogation room so many years ago. By imagine, I don’t mean invent. But it’s not like I was actually there, so I don’t know what else to call it. I picture the scene from that day, based on what he told me and some other clues, my own experience and conclusions. It’s not just this scene I imagine. For over sixteen years, I’ve pondered, prodded, and worked every detail embroiled in the case known as “The High School Beauty Murder”—to the point I often fool myself into thinking I’d personally witnessed the circumstances now stamped on my mind’s eye. The imagination is just as painful as reality. No, it’s more painful. After all, what you imagine has no limit or end.

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The boy sat alone in the interrogation room for over ten minutes. The room was bare apart from a table and four chairs. No pictures decorated the wall, no flower vase or ashtray sat on the table. Some people appear uneasy no matter what they do, and this boy was one of them. He sat awkwardly in his chair, with eyes dull and sleepy-looking. Maybe because there was nothing to look at, but his eyes were like camera lenses constantly shifting to find focus on a white background.

A detective entered the room and sat across from the boy. The boy’s gaze grew a bit more focused.

“Han Manu!” the detective snapped, in a tone used by a teacher or head disciplinarian to summon a troublemaker before dealing out punishment.

It was enough for resentment to take root in the boy’s heart. I believe this was also the moment his cruel fate was sealed.

At the time, no one at school called him by his actual name. The other students called him Halmanggu or Manujeol, but his most shining nickname came from the song “Han-o-baeg-nyeon.”* To their ears, the opening words “ha-an-man-eu-eu-eun” sounded just like his name. If you slurred the n sound so that you said “ha-an-man-u-u-u” instead, it was perfect. This particular nickname proved so popular that both Halmanggu and Manujeol died out eventually, and his friends would belt out “Ha-an man-u-u-u!” like a master pansori singer, warming up her voice before a performance.

But until the incident, I wasn’t even aware of his existence. He was in his last year of senior high and I’d just entered the school. When I grope through my memory, though, I seem to recall boys warbling his name in a ridiculous, ...