Cursed Bunny

October 17, 2022
Chung debuts with a well-crafted and horrifying collection of dark fairy tales, stark revenge fables, and disturbing body horror. In “The Head,” a woman is terrorized by a creature in her toilet. In “The Frozen Finger,” a woman awakes in the dark, unsure how her car got stuck in the mud, and follows a voice before learning of the danger it leads her to. In “Snare,” a fox bleeds gold and curses the merchant who keeps her captive; her curse is enacted horrifically through the merchant’s own children. “Scars” features a nameless boy who escapes endless tortures in a monster’s cave only to find pain and horror in the world of men. In “Goodbye, My Love,” a woman falls in love with an “artificial companion” but comes to a shocking realization when she attempts to replace the AI with a newer model. The strangely touching “Home Sweet Home” starts as a somewhat traditional story of a woman whose hard work is taken for granted by her ne’er-do-well husband, but their house holds a powerful secret that brings her happiness. Clever plot twists and sparkling prose abound. Chung’s work is captivating and terrifying.

Starred review from October 15, 2022
Dark and visceral tales shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. If the first story of a collection is meant to set the tone for the whole volume, then "The Head," the opener to South Korean author Chung's first work to be translated into English, is a doozy. A young woman is beset by a talking head in her toilet, made from, as the head tells the woman, "the things you dumped down the toilet, like your fallen-out hair and feces and toilet paper you used to wipe your behind." No matter how the woman tries to silence or destroy the head, it grows and disrupts her life through courtship, marriage, and the birth of her daughter. If it seems surprising that an institution like the Booker Prize would go for gross-out body horror, one need only consider the deft social commentary that underpins Chung's tales. In "The Embodiment," for example, a single woman ends up pregnant from taking too much birth control medication and then is warned by her obstetrician that if she doesn't find a father for her unborn child, the consequences could be dire. (Spoiler: They are.) Women's bodies are literally disfigured by social expectations or cultural pressures; children are destroyed by the cruel whims of adults. Money, old age, technology, and intergenerational trauma ruin plenty of things here, too. In the title story, the family business--the making of cursed fetish objects--is passed down through the generations, with one particularly disastrous rabbit lamp wreaking havoc on its greedy recipient. Whether borrowing from fable, folktale, speculative fiction, science fiction, or horror, Chung's stories corkscrew toward devastating conclusions--bleak, yes, but also wise and honest about the nightmares of contemporary life. Don't read this book while eating--but don't skip these unflinching, intelligent stories, either.

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June 10, 2024

Shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize, Chung's short story collection offers a haunting introduction to her wholly original body of work. By blending magical realism, science fiction, fantasy, and horror, Chung forces her characters to inhabit a universe that is disturbingly askew and only slightly familiar. One story involves a woman who spends her entire life haunted by her bodily waste while another features a youth who escapes a monster only to find other monstrous people ready to exploit him. In "Snare," a story reminiscent of one of Aesop's fables, a man finds a strange fox that bleeds gold. The standout titular story focuses on a cursed object and the havoc it wreaks on one family and its business empire. Narrator Greta Jung's restrained delivery is focused and direct, abandoning excess flourish and flowery language. The result is a collection that sounds like it could have come from older relatives, telling stories passed down orally through generations. One can only imagine how their awestruck and terrified audience might have reacted. VERDICT Fans of unsettling short stories should give Chung's twisted modern folk tales a listen. These visceral, smart tales, teaching their lessons through suffering, make an impact.--James Gardner

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