The language here sometimes eluded me—at times it’s almost too spare, and I didn’t always track the metaphors that Kwon favors for Jin’s interior life. For such a short book there’s a ton going on: it’s an embodiment of lapsed religious belief, filial duty, sexual desire blossoming through explorations of kink. All this layered with myth reinterpreted through family history. Reading this after Skull Water I feel like I’ve gotten two very unique expressions of the Korean psyche.