The Interpreter

By Suki Kim

Book Overview

A striking first novel about the dark side of the American Dream Suzy Park is a twenty-nine-year-old Korean American interpreter for the New York City court system. Young, attractive, and achingly alone, she makes a startling and ominous discovery during one court case that forever alters her family's history. Five years prior, her parents--hardworking greengrocers who forfeited personal happiness for their children's gain--were brutally murdered in an apparent robbery of their fruit and vegetable stand. Or so Suzy believed. But the glint of a new lead entices Suzy into the dangerous Korean underworld, and ultimately reveals the mystery of her parents' homicide. An auspicious debut about the myth of the model Asian citizen, The Interpreter traverses the distance between old worlds and new, poverty and privilege, language and understanding.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374177139
• ISBN13: 9780374177133
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.3" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Amazing, thrilling - a must read!

This book is amazing. I easily fell in love with the main character, Suzy, a Korean born immigrant living in the United States. I'm not good with reviews, but this book is absolutely captivating! If you are into Asian American literature or Korean culture, please consider this book!

A quintessential NYC novel and mystery

This is an satisfying, entertaining first novel and mystery which explores New York City's Korean American immigrant and merchant community and their 1.5 Generation children. Told in the third person, we meet Suzy Park, on the cusp of turning 30, an ivy-educated, unfinished daughter of immigrant, Korean greengrocers in the Bronx. Estranged from her family, Suzy has aimlessly tripped from one adulterous relationship and temporary job to another. It is a life of unscented impermanence, with dull colored cars and a forever incomplete cathedral. She shuns her fellow 1.5 Generation members who strive in school. Her latest job is as an interpreter for the city court system. As an interpreter, she cannot take sides in court cases, but she is a keen observer and picks up the nuances and subtleties of languages, tones, and expressions. As the story unfolds, the reader will hope that Suzy not only interprets and transfers these depositions, but learns to interpret her own life choices and place in America. Although her parents were killed in a robbery of their store nearly five years ago, she never discusses the tragedy, not even with her friends or prying roommate. But when one client hints at some knowledge of a prior murder of greengrocers, Suzy picks up the trail of the mystery. Like the layers of a greengrocer's onion, the story unfolds as clues are unpeeled in each chapter. Was the robbery a murder? Why did the family move so often? Along the way, the author mixes in Korean culture, Nabokov, the INS, Japanese cinema, news radio-WINS, botany, van Gogh, and King Lear to create an absorbing, expeditious mystery.

Amazing book

The language in this novel haunted me, and keeps haunting me weeks after reading it. It is as interior and quiet and stark as something by Jose Saramago. Really, a beautiful and thrilling book.

Wow!!!

I loved this book. Normally, I do not prefer mystery novels but 'The Interpreter' caught me right from the first page. The problem with many mystery novels is that although they are interesting, they lack style. Such is not the dilemma with this book. Suki Kim's intertwining plot coupled with her poetic writing style makes this reviewer recommend this book highly to all readers. The only drawback is that it kept me up for most of the night; consequently, I was late to work.