Poor boys and pilgrims with families

I just finished reading The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. Imagine the story of Dick Whitman and Anna Draper if they were citizens of North Korea.

The second half of the novel, after the orphan master's son assumes the identity of North Korea's Minister of Prison Mines, contains chapters written as audio propaganda that are both annoying and amusing.

The couple stopped, deep in the hothouse, to recumbently enjoy the splendor of North Korea's leadership. Commander Ga dripped with sweat, and in his honor, groping stamens emanated their scent in clouds of sweet spoor that coated our lovers' bodies with the sticky seed of socialism. Sun Moon offered her Juche to him, and he gave her all he had of Songun policy. At length, in depth, their spirited exchange culminated in a mutual exclaim of Party understanding. [292]

Citizens—feel her sadness at having to return to a land where doctors chase pregnant women with ultrasounds. Sense her outrage at being sent back to a crime-laden land of materialism and exclusion, where huge populations languish in jail, sprawl urine-soaked in the streets, or babble incoherently about God on the sweatpants-polished pews of megachurches. [351]

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