8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee

At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, assumed identities and spying. A life that moves from WWII Indonesia to Busan during the Korean war; from cold-war Pyongyang to a Protestant church in China. The adventures are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable. Surely they can’t all belong to the same woman. Can they?

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Mirinae Lee’s debut novel opens in the Golden Sunset retirement Home near Seoul, where an initiative is launched to help residents prepare their obituaries.  It may seem a little morbid, but it gives the residents an opportunity to talk about their lives, their loved ones, their achievements, and their regrets, and also helps their families once they’ve passed away.  The obituarist’s method is to get the residents to think about three key words to help structure the summary of their lives.  That is until she meets Mook Miran, who insists that three words aren’t enough, and eventually settles on eight.  What follows are eight tales showing how the following words relate to significant moments in Miran’s life:

SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER.

The eight tales are mostly told out of order, and it’s left to the reader to understand how they fit together chronologically (they do have the year in which they take place at the start of each) and which story relates to each of those tantalising descriptions, although most are obvious.  Perhaps because some of these tales have previously been published as short stories, the combined result is a little disorientating and disjointed – it felt in places like I was reading a short story collection rather than a cohesive whole, and there were times when I found it difficult to understand how some narratives fit in amongst the others.  It was an ultimately rewarding and an interesting novel, but I felt that the structure didn’t quite work for me.  And I will say that some of those stories are excellent, if harrowing in places. Me, Myself, and Mole was a particular standout for me.

Throughout, Ms. Mook comes across as an incredible character.  Nearly one-hundred years old as she recounts her life, she comes across as a brave and mercurial individual and, as the above descriptions suggest, she’s led quite a life which we get to see at various stages from childhood and as an adult.  She’s experienced and survived so much, and her character is a testament to what people can endure under extreme circumstances.  That said, there were times when both the narrator and the reader wonder whether the boundary between fact and fiction has been crossed.  It’s hard to know at times whether she’s being entirely honest, particularly given that she includes “trickster” in her list, although she doesn’t shy away from the darker periods of her life at any point. 

Through Ms Mook’s narrative, the author shares a brief history of Korea through turbulent times, and as seen from the perspective of a normal individual, rather than focussing on the decision makers or those fighting in a war not of their choosing. While Ms Mook’s tales seem extreme in places, much of the narrative is based in fact and the real experiences of women in times of war, some of which are awful to think about.  I felt that this was a successful way of sharing some of that history, which I’m not all that familiar with.

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is an interesting novel – I liked the character of Mook Miran and the framing narrative that allows her to share her history works well, but the overall structure didn’t work for me personally as I regularly had to stop to consider how the current tale fit in with the others.  It should also be noted that some of Ms Mook’s experiences are absolutely awful, and there are elements of abuse included in the narrative that may not suit some readers.  I will say that the novel is beautifully written, however, and I’d very happily read another novel by Mirinae Lee. 

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Book 14 of 20 Books of Summer.