THE INTERPRETER

A ghostlike first novel follows the dispirited meanderings of a Korean-American woman in downtown Manhattan as she investigates the murder of her grocery-owner parents five years before.

At 29, Suzy Park works as an interpreter in the court system and wonders what to do with the rest of her life after dropping out of Barnard College in her senior year to live with a much older (and Caucasian) professor of East Asian art, Damian Biscoe. Four years later, her parents, who disowned her when she left school, are murdered in their Bronx grocery store (“a professional job”), leaving Suzy and her older sister, Grace, orphans in the American immigrant sea; by now she’s left Damian and embarked on an ambitionless quest for temporary work and the disembodied solace of being mistress to unavailable, married men. Hang-up calls pursue her, and the mysterious delivery of a bouquet of irises (her mother’s favorite flower) on the anniversary of her parents’ death (along with her vain attemps to contact her chilly, estranged sister) prompt her to delve into the Korean-American communities of the city in search of the true motivation behind the murder. Were her parents informers for the INS? Was beautiful, aloof Grace flirting with the Korean underworld? Although newcomer Kim is a precise, patient observer, her narrative is slow to get going, endlessly repetitive, and overall deadening, energy-less. But as Suzy begins to examine her nomadic childhood under her emotionally hostile parents who slaved seven-day weeks at their various stores and demanded embittering obedience from their wayward daughters, the story gains its smart momentum.

A sleek, nearly hypnotic glimpse into the world of a Korean family ruptured in translation to America.