All Woman and Springtime is the first novel by Brandon W. Jones who has taken on the topics of North Korea and human trafficking in one big gulp of a story. The story centers on two young women who are about to age out of a women's orphanage in North Korea.Gi (Gyong-ho) was orphaned in a concentration camp after inadvertently revealing a trivial infraction by her family's care of "the Dear Leader's" portrait hanging in their home...it had dust on it. Her torture in the camp is graphically described and she survives only by withdrawing into a world of math and numbers, an area in which she is a savant.Il-sun is the daughter of a deceased military officer. Her older brother died in a concentration camp because of his outspoken behavior. She became orphaned when her mother died in her early teens. Il-sun has dreams of marrying well and living happily ever after in so far as that is defined in North Korean terms.Part 1 of the book details their lives in the orphanage and their work in a sewing factory. The deprivation, hunger, and meanness of spirit is brought home through the narrative and anecdotes. Gi is merely trying to survive and is looking forward to when she and Il-sun will leave the orphanage. Il-sun is acting more like an adolescent that a westerner might recognize. It is Il-sun's flirtations that move the story into the second part of the book.Part 2 chronicles their transport across the DMZ between North and South Korea under the belief that the North Korean authorities are after them. Instead they, along with another young woman, Cho, are sold as sex slaves to a South Korean thug. Again the narrative brings home the effect of their isolated lives in the North. One anecdote described how startled the women were to see an overweight person and their first interaction with fast food. The rest of this section describes their captivity as sex slaves and the machinery of the porn empire their captor has built. Some of this is brutally described. With the help of another captive woman who is South Korean, they develop an escape plan with a tragic outcome that causes all four of them to be sold.Part 3 of the book takes place in Seattle in a Korean mafia owned brothel. They are kept indoors and not allowed to wear shoes. They are "branded" with the gang's tattoos as is the madame and the shady doctor who comes to care for them. After more suffering, there is an upbeat ending to the book.The story is compelling. The author's writing is adequate to the story. In journeying through the story, there are characters that are introduced then left behind. Some reviews fault the author for that, but I suspect that it brings home the nature of human trafficking....people (mostly women and children) disappear and are never heard from again. So we don't learn what happens to the mistress of the orphanage, or the woman who saved Gi from the concentration camp and other characters. Given the topics, it would have been artifice to have them all tied up neatly at the end of this story. While a fascinating read--and one I recommend--the book has some serious structural problems caused by the author's need to have to manipulate the plot so he can present all the issues he wants to deal with. Having said that, I believe he does a wonderful job of creating rounded, and in most cases dynamic characters rather than stereotypes. Having just finished reading Adam Johnson's s "The Orphan Masters Son," I felt that both authors gave a similar picture of life in North Korea. Jones, however, is interested in also showing us the lives of those young girls and women who become caught in the horrible trafficking . This he does so well that the book can be a horrendous experience, but, I believe, a necessary one.
What do You think about All Woman And Springtime (2012)?
A wonderful read about a sorrowful relationship between two women.
—Heather26
Mesmerizing and beautiful and somewhat brutal.
—annie
