The Starlet and the Spy

The Starlet & the Spy / Ji-Min Lee;
trans. from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim
NY: Harper, c2019
192 p.

In 1954, Marilyn Munroe visited US troops in Korea. This much is true. And this is what sparks this novel of the Korean War, and the effect that Marilyn's visit has one one particular Korean woman, Alice J. Kim, who works as a typist and translator for the US Army in Seoul. 

Alice has a long and tragic backstory, having been caught in the North during the war. With a story of terrible things, of camps, and escapes, and bombs and betrayal, and of a young child given into her care and then lost, Alice is trying to recover and behave normally, hiding her secrets and the two lovers she left behind in the war. Unfortunately for her, one of them was a US spy who turns up again, just like a bad penny. 

She is roped into travelling with Marilyn during her visit to keep her organized and to translate for her. The tenuous relationship they form, and the similarities they share, change both their lives. 

Unfortunately, I found that the presentation of Marilyn was very vague and surface driven -- Marilyn is as distant and starlet-like as she is in her films. You don't get a feel for her as a person at all, just as her historical persona. Thus, the connection between she and Alice feels unreal and unconvincing. Alice herself is a strong, tragic figure who is living in brutal reality; the comparison with the vague woes of Marilyn, in need of sleeping pills, seems trite. 

The story is dark but also has a cinematic feel; it feels a bit distant from the interiority I prefer in a novel that is so based in personal experience and perception. The best parts of the book illuminate daily life in Korea both before and after the war, the daily preoccupations of different characters, and the effects of civil war and foreign interference. 

So as a whole it's a brief read that sheds light on a troubled moment in history, and does that quite well. As a romance or celebrity novel, it falls short. Marilyn Monroe feels like an unnecessary prop to a more important story, in the end.