Lemon
Kwon Yeo-sun, Janet Hong (translation)Originally published in Korean as 레몬 [Lemon] in 2019
by Changbi Publishers, Inc., Seoul
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This is not a murder story. It is the story of those left behind.
Parasite meets The Good Son in this piercing psychological portrait of three women haunted by a brutal, unsolved crime.
In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, eighteen-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, & delivery boy Han Manu, who witnessed her there just a few hours before her death. But when Jeongjun’s alibi checks out, & no evidence can be pinned on Manu, the case goes cold.
17 years pass without any resolution for those close to Hae-on, & the grief & 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 & 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 privilege, jealousy, trauma, & how we live with the wrongs we have endured & inflicted in turn.
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