For example: “Was that it? Did she witness the young woman being killed? Where could that have been? The docks? The sea wall?” Or: “Auntie’s words didn’t leave my head even when I went to the shower, toothbrush in my mouth. It’s a book of mystery, too, but a good portion of it consists of Yu-jin talking to himself, trying to figure out what’s going on. Those encounters are each fraught with tension, and the tension comes from Jeong’s prose, which spares not a single word. When he goes downstairs, he finds his mother dead, and soon he convinces himself that the two of them had fought earlier, her in a rage, him defending himself. He has vague memories of the night before. The novel begins with its protagonist, Yu-jin, waking up in his room covered in blood. You-Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son is a precise, meticulously plotted thriller that is occasionally too precise and meticulous for its own good.
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