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WORK TITLE: THE STARLET AND THE SPY
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NATIONALITY: Korean
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PERSONAL
Female.
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CAREER
Screenwriter and writer.
WRITINGS
Author of novels in Korean.
SIDELIGHTS
Ji-Min Lee is a Korean screenwriter and writer of several novels. Lee published the novel The Starlet and the Spy, which was published in Britain as Marilyn and Me, in 2019. Translated into English by Man Asian Prize-winning translator Chi Young Kim, the novel centers on the recollections of South Korean interpreter Alice J. Kim while on tour with Marilyn Monroe. In 1954 South Korea is occupied by the American military. A newly married Monroe is scheduled to appear in Seoul for four days to entertain the troops. Kim, who works as a clerk on an American military base, is assigned as Monroe’s interpreter during her visit. The story jumps across time in a non-linear fashion as Kim recalls her experiences, the impact of the war on her life, and being torn between two lovers. She was involved with both the married Yo Min-hwan and the American agent Joseph Pines as she moved from occupied Seoul to a prisoner of war camp in the North and again back to Seoul. After her love affairs crumble at her own doing, she goes in search of the orphaned Chong-nim, hoping to redeem herself while fighting against her own suicidal feelings.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly commented that “Lee’s touching examination of the long shadow of a war cast over one woman will leave readers intensely moved.” The reviewer found it to be “a well-told historical snapshot.” Writing in Shelf Awareness, Julia Kastner observed that “The Starlet and the Spy is bleak but whimsical and, yes, hopeful.” Kastner pointed out that “Chi-Young Kim’s translation is both spare and emotionally evocative, suiting a narrator who is simultaneously desolate and childishly yearning.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2019, review of The Starlet and the Spy.
Publishers Weekly, July 8, 2019, review of The Starlet and the Spy, p. 57.
ONLINE
Shelf Awareness, https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ (August 5, 2019), review of The Starlet and the Spy.
Ji-min Lee
Ji-min Lee is a celebrated screenwriter in Korea and author of several novels.
Chi Young Kim is the Man Asian Prize winning translator of Please Look After Mom, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, The Good Son and many others.
New Books
July 2019
(hardback)
Marilyn and Me
Novels
Marilyn and Me (2019)
aka The Starlet and the Spy
Ji-min Lee is a celebrated screenwriter in Korea and author of several novels.
Lee, Ji-Min THE STARLET AND THE SPY Harper/HarperCollins (Adult Fiction) $15.99 9, 10 ISBN: 978-0-06-293026-2
A South Korean interpreter recalls her war-torn love life while on tour with Marilyn Monroe.
Lee, a screenwriter, has structured her short novel almost like an avant-garde film: The present action frames several flashbacks as the story follows an emotional, not a linear, arc. In 1954, the Korean War has ended and American forces occupy the South. For four morale-boosting days, Marilyn Monroe (the new Mrs. DiMaggio) is scheduled to visit Seoul and entertain the troops. First-person narrator Alice J. Kim (her nom de guerre), a translator and clerk on an American base, is tapped to serve as the star's interpreter. From here it is rough chronological sailing; readers are advised to cling to the date headings of each chapter as flotation devices. A talented artist born to wealth, Alice (real name Ae-sun) refused an opportunity to escape. When Northern forces seized Seoul, she survived for a time by drawing propaganda posters for the enemy but eventually endured bombardment, then captivity in a Northern POW camp. Torn between Yo Min-hwan, a married lover, and Joseph Pines, an American agent, she alienated both, and her clumsy revenge had unintended, dire consequences. She seeks redemption by searching for Chong-nim, an orphaned girl she had helped during the evacuation of Hungnam. She is also contemplating suicide for reasons it takes the entire novel to establish. Acknowledging that the Korean War is still "The Forgotten War," Lee, in this able translation by Kim, depicts several horrific episodes: neighborhoods in flames, hordes of refugees trying to escape the Communist invasion on overcrowded American ships, piles of corpses with those still living trapped beneath. The gritty truth is too often undermined by the banal love triangle, and Kim is perhaps overly fond of pronouncements like "A woman's beauty is powerful enough to change her fate, though it becomes useless as she grows old." The Marilyn frame story does pose revealing parallels between two outwardly privileged ingenues with inner scars.
An intermittently chaotic novel which manages to snatch poignancy from the jaws of cliche.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lee, Ji-Min: THE STARLET AND THE SPY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A591279188/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d9a47e15. Accessed 10 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A591279188
Ji-Min Lee. Harper, $15.99 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-06-293026-2
Lee's heartbreaking debut riffs on true-events to tell the story of a brief connection between Marilyn Monroe and a Korean War survivor. Kim Ae-Sun has changed her name to Alice J. Kim, and in early 1954, less than a year after the cease-fire, she's working as a typist and translator at an American military base in Seoul. When Marilyn comes to visit the troops that remain in the country, Alice is assigned to escort her to various functions, helping with organizing and translating. Observing and interacting with the glamorous movie star does little to soothe Alice's memories of the loss of her youthful self, her two prewar lovers, and a child she had taken into her care after escaping a refugee camp. The atrocities of war--including the battles of her country and the bitter conflict within herself--continue to sear Alice's thoughts after she's located by one of her ex-lovers during Marilyn's tour, and when she realizes he had worked as a spy, her world is shaken again. The presence of Marilyn doesn't dominate the story, but when she helps Alice to face despair simply by the force of her personality, her impact is as dramatic as her short life. This is a well-told historical snapshot, but at the center is the author's convincing portrayal of the pain Alice experiences. Lee's touching examination of the long shadow of a war cast over one woman will leave readers intensely moved. (Sept.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Starlet and the Spy." Publishers Weekly, 8 July 2019, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A593351659/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=4cf914a4. Accessed 10 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A593351659
Book Review
Review: The Starlet and the Spy
The Starlet and the Spy by Ji-Min Lee, trans. by Chi-Young Kim (Harper Paperbacks, $15.99 paperback, 192p., 9780062930262, September 10, 2019)
"I go to work thinking of death. Hardly anyone in Seoul is happy during the morning commute, but I'm certain I'm one of the most miserable."
At the opening of Ji-Min Lee's The Starlet and the Spy, Alice J. Kim works as a translator for the American forces a year after the armistice and ceasefire. Her life and outlook are as dour as these introductory lines represent: the traumas of the war have left her hopeless and joyless, taking her day-to-day life as a series of tasks to be completed. When her boss tells her about an upcoming assignment, he expects she'll feel excited and honored to serve as escort, interpreter and handler for Marilyn Monroe, on a tour to entertain American troops. Alice is unmoved--what does she care for an American movie star?
During the course of four days with the bombshell, however, Alice will be forced to broaden her perspective on her own life and options. Her two former lovers both reappear, shaking her understanding of what exactly happened during the war. There seems the hint of a chance that she will find someone she's lost. As Alice struggles with her will to live, the American beauty surprises her. Stunning, sexy, charismatic, yes; but Monroe is also unexpectedly approachable. And she will make a small but essential difference in the life of the less famous woman.
Lee's novel is rooted in historical fact and inspired by two photographs: one of Monroe performing for American troops, in a slinky dress, in the snow; the other of an unknown female Korean interpreter. It is the intersection of these two lives that interests her. Two women, one famous, the other a novelist's blank slate. What if they had met?
The Starlet and the Spy is bleak but whimsical and, yes, hopeful. Seoul has been beaten down; food is scarce and orphanages overflow. Alice dyes her hair with beer and steals pornography from work to sell to her landlady. A former artist, she doesn't draw anymore; being forced to create endless portraits of Stalin during the war has dulled her passion, another loss that it seems she will not recover from. But she may have more friends than she thinks she does. Chi-Young Kim's translation is both spare and emotionally evocative, suiting a narrator who is simultaneously desolate and childishly yearning.
Born of a curiosity about human relationships in unusual times, The Starlet and the Spy asks the questions: What if we met across a divide? What if a despairing young Korean woman reached into Marilyn Monroe's makeup bag for a lipstick, or a way out? In a decidedly optimistic turn, Lee leaves her ending open, and her reader free to wonder what might be next for Alice. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia
Shelf Talker: In 1954 Seoul, a war-weary young Korean woman and Marilyn Monroe share a brief but crucial sojourn, and learn they have more in common than they thought.