“Can you tell a story that doesn’t begin, it’s just suddenly happening?”

In each of the six short stories in this collection, which won the 2015 National book Award, things suddenly happen on the first page: there are no descriptions of the setting, no background information.  Instead, the story seems to be already happening.  In an interview, author Adam Johnson said, … Read More

“They could tell it was Jun Do who’d picked which orphans ate first and which were left with watery spoonfuls.”

Johnson editWhen Jun Do was a child living in an orphanage in North Korea, one of his responsibilities was to decide which of his peers would be punished.  That was just the beginning. As an adult, he was often in the impossible position of trying to let the most innocent suffer … Read More