The unhappy protagonist of Kim's debut novel is Suzy Park, a reserved, attractive 29-year-old Korean American with a bad habit of falling into affairs with older, married men. For the last few months, Suzy has been working as an interpreter, translating for non-English-speaking Koreans in court cases.
She had been estranged from her family for five years when her parents were killed, ostensibly in a robbery of their fruit and vegetable stand. Now, four years after the deaths, while translating in court, she suddenly stumbles upon intriguing new information about their past, a discovery which compels her to look closer into the mystery surrounding their life and death. This quest draws her into the underground world of Asian gang life and ultimately leads her to truths that change her entire personal and familial perspective.
Suzy is a sharp and smart character, but not immediately lovable. Although I felt I had access to the most intimate thoughts in Suzy's head, I nevertheless felt somewhat disconnected from her, perhaps because she is, by nature, a detached person. This is not to say I didn't like Suzy-I did. I understood her well enough to forgive her faults. But at the end of the book I still felt as though I hadn't quite solved the puzzle that was Suzy.
Kim writes beautifully, almost poetically in some places. She has mastered the art of "showing, not telling," as my teachers used to call it in middle school. The small details are what bring the story to life and make it believable. For example, five-college students will smile when Kim mentions that guys from Amherst and UMass were always pursuing Suzy's sister, a former Smith student.
As a Korean-American, I nodded in recognition whenever a tiny aspect of Suzy's life mirrored my own. For example, Kim describes boricha, a tea drank in Korean households, including my own, instead of plain water.
It is possible that my being Korean makes me somewhat biased since the minor elements of Suzy's background are instantly recognizable to me. However, Kim never takes for granted that the reader will understand these ethnic details, and I believe that non-Koreans will be just as able to comprehend and appreciate Kim's attention to detail.
Where Kim fails is in the construction of the plot. Suzy's discoveries center around coincidences and epiphanies, or her ability to harass and trick people into telling stories about her family. Mind you, many of the people she extracts answers from are those who've sworn, either to themselves or to others, to stay quiet.
I accepted these coincidences the first few times they happened. After several such instances, however, I found Suzy's methods rather hard to buy and wished they were more creative and a little more believable.
The novel is clumsy in some places. It becomes obvious that some events occur simply to move the story along and a few characters, especially Suzy's friends, seem to do little but provide a background to offset Suzy's character.
Considering that "The Interpreter" is her first novel, Kim acquits herself quite nicely. The plot, if not always credible, is definitely interesting. As Suzy uncovers more and more of the sinister secrets hidden under her family's "model minority" exterior, I had no trouble believing the history that she finally pieces together because the characters seem fairly real.
Even at its worst, "The Interpreter" shows that Kim has plenty of potential.
The novel is, if nothing else, fascinating and a good choice for pleasure reading, whether at the airport or on campus. As long as you don't expect any sort of profound, life-changing epiphanies, you won't be disappointed.