Skull Water

A Novel

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on Amazon Buy on Waterstones.com
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 7 Feb 2023 | Archive Date 15 Jan 2023

Description


Set in South Korea in the 1950s and 1970s, a haunting inter-generational coming-of-age novel about identity and displacement. Skull Water is a coming-of-age story set in South Korea about Insu, the son of a Korean mother and a GI father in the U.S. Army, and the intertwined tale of his Korean Big Uncle, who has been exiled to a mountain cave near the family village to die from a gangrenous foot. Growing up near the army base in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu and his two best friends, also “half and halfs,” spend their days skipping school, selling scavenged Western goods on the black market, and testing the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. When Insu hears an old legend that water collected from a dead person’s skull will cure any sickness, he vows to collect some in order to heal Big Uncle’s mysterious injury—a quest that takes him and his friends on a sprawling journey into some of South Korea’s darkest corners. Meanwhile, Big Uncle, a geomancer who was uprooted by the Korean War, has embraced his solitude and fate and attempts to teach his nephew that life is not limited to what we can see or what we think we know. As Insu becomes increasingly drawn to his family lore, Korean folktales, and Buddhist spiritual teachings, South Korea itself is changing—rapidly transforming into a more modern Western country. In this sweeping tale of displacement and identity, Skull Water explores questions surrounding family, loyalty, and history, and the ways in which our past continues to haunt our present.

Set in South Korea in the 1950s and 1970s, a haunting inter-generational coming-of-age novel about identity and displacement. Skull Water is a coming-of-age story set in South Korea about Insu, the...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781954118195
PRICE US$28.00 (USD)
PAGES 384

Average rating from 37 members


Readers who liked this book also liked: