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.Click Here to see more reviews about: The Interpreter (Hardcover)
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