Funereal

by Giacomo Lee

Soobin Shin is an aspiring young woman in a near-future version of Seoul. Ever since her college graduation, she has struggled to escape from her dead-end job in a doughnut chain. Her twin sister Hyewon is one of Korea’s most recognizable models, but Soobin just can’t seem to find her lucky break… until one evening, a creepy regular customer offers her a job in a company he has just started. OneLife Korea is going to save South Korea one funeral at a time: by burying the living in order to help them find some peace of mind in the country with the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Soobin has already lost her mother, and her relationship with her boyfriend is on the rocks. What else does she have to lose? Everything at OneLife Korea seems perfect until high-profile clients actually start dying. Soobin Shin is Korea’s beautiful new angel of death, and Funereal is a snapshot of a city in flux, taking a look at the dark side to surgery, survival, and stardom in one of Asia’s most dynamic capitals.

Genres: Science Fiction, Contemporary, Fiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 2015

Reviews

[Jacqueline Brocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: the author is a friend and gave me a copy to read. The review, however, is of my own volition.

Soobin Shin, 28, stuck in a dead-end job in a doughnut shop, thinks she has hit salvation when a regular customer, Joe, asks her to join his new company, OneLife. His goal: to save South Korea. How? By offering staged funerals to the depressed - the chance to experience, just for a short while, the process of dying and being buried (or at least having the lid of a coffin closed on you while you contemplate your life and indeed your death). Soobin takes the job, and find herself rather good at easing the clients into their not-quite final resting place. Of course, this wouldn't be a story if that's all there was to it. When one client fails to get out of his coffin, a series of events are set in motion that Soobin has to unravel to find the truth about not only herself but the world around her.

The title 'Funereal' is more than apt - both a statement of the mood of the story (the 'funeral' scenes are atmospheric) and as a play on the idea of what is 'real' and what isn't. That theme, the fake versus reality, permeates the novel and is indeed a critique on the state of affairs in South Korea: bandaged figures who've recently had plastic surgery walk past show windows; Soobin is upbraided for thinking too much outside the box by one prospective employer; suicides (frighteningly common in South Korea today) are covered up by families for fear of stigma; pop stars plaster the world around them with happy smiles but probably aren't (the death of Ahra Boo, pop star Soobin's age, recurs throughout the novel as an important reminder to us and a plot point.) Soobin doesn't exactly fit the ideal in terms of taste - her love of western music being the most prominent marker of this - and she navigates a world trying to find her true purpose and true self, while that world keeps trying to offer a road map to being only one type of person.

The novel's theme of course gives rise to ideas and thoughts of death and dying. Soobin, deeply affected by her mother's sudden death as a child and also her grandmother's passing, considers these alongside the men and women she and Joe 'bury.' It is well-handled and often very moving, and gives the novel heart. Luckily there is humour too to lighten the mood - Joe makes for a great comic character with a slight sinister edge, and some of the 'funerals' themselves are very funny. What could have been a very sombre and serious tome is given some levity. Much like life itself.

'Funereal' is both a thriller and a coming of age story, and it is a very comfortable marriage. It was a real page turner as well as a novel that asks questions of our humanity, life and death. Soobin feels like a young woman you could easily meet on the street, with so many of the regular problems many her age experience (a flakey boyfriend, questions of life's purpose) alongside her rather unique position that thrusts her into something else much bigger than her.

I enjoyed Funereal very much, and I do hope it gets the recognition it deserves.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit, while I was reading Giacomo Lee's Funereal recently, it actually reminded me a lot of a book that CCLaP itself published a couple of years ago, Scott Abrahams' Turtle and Dam; not because of any plot similarities (to be clear, the books have very different storylines), but because they're both great examples of white Westerners writing convincingly about young people in contemporary Asia, with Lee's particular story taking place in right-this-second South Korea (or just "Korea" as it's known in the book, an early sign that we are now looking at this country from the standpoint of a local instead of a foreign visitor).

One of those books that seems to touch on every single thing about Asian culture we Americans find strange, at its heart it's the tale of mid-twenties slacker Soobin Shin, a wannabe indie-rock musician and unemployed marketing major currently working at a doughnut shop in a neighborhood in Seoul known specifically for all its plastic surgeons; the story really takes off when she discovers that one of their regular slovenly customers has just started a new business dedicated to "radical psychotherapy," in which despondent and suicidal clients are given an actual funeral with their actual friends in attendance, and where they lie in an actual coffin for hours at a time, under the belief that it will help them understand the true joys of life without the family shame of seeing an actual psychologist.

This is the ingenious joy of this book in a nutshell -- that this odd little detail helps us understand just what a shameful thing it still is in Korea to admit that one is seeing a medical therapist -- and essentially this entire novel is 228 pages of that, strange little stories about Soobin's surreal life as the new marketing director of "OneLife," which each serve as another way for us as Westerners to examine such bizarre (in our eyes) Asian phenomenon as K-pop, doomsday cults, love hotels, sexual submissiveness in corporate culture, karaoke bars as "brothel lite"s, and a lot more. A book that just almost dips into science-fiction at times, although still feeling like we're simply getting a glimpse at the ultra-cutting-edge elements of Korean life that most of us just don't know about, there's a good reason that Lee is getting compared left and right these days to people like David Mitchell and William Gibson (and has become the latest obsession of the brilliantly weird geniuses at Boing Boing, no small feat); and Funereal comes strongly recommended to those who are specifically into these kinds of stories, and especially those who want to understand hipster Asia better precisely through the weird little details that make it seem like some bizarro genre story.

Out of 10: 9.7

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooo boy. I love scouting for new voices. I found Funereal while browsing through Goodreads giveaways. I wasn't selected for a review copy, but the synopsis intrigued me so I took a gamble anyway. And this time it paid off.

Funereal is a surreal near-future thriller about life and death in Seoul, South Korea. Soobin Shin clambers up from a deadend job into the world of Korean pop stars, selling them fake deaths so that they will appreciate their lives. When customers start dying for real, Soobin sets out to uncover what is really happening at OneLife. Giacomo builds a gothic Seoul room by room, one identical shopping mall to the next, and meticulously crafts a story to fill these rooms with fame, vanity, greed, and just enough hope to hold this fragile world together.

I recommend this book to scifi and urban fantasy fans who are looking for a story set in a culture that may be surprising to westerners, but one that will feel authentic and penetrating as the tale unfolds.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funereal takes us on a bracing journey through the physical and psychological landscape of modern Seoul, entertaining us while never shying away from the big questions. The prose is taut and electric, buzzing like the hi-tech world that its characters inhabit. Funereal is both a thriller and a meditation on life in the 21st century, illuminating a world where media, technology, and the thirst for fame can turn the idea of living and dying on its head. Funereal is an impressive and imaginative achievement from an exciting new writer.

[Yvonne (It's All About Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished reading: April 10th 2015

"Sleep is the true rehearsal for death, Soobin thought with a sigh. That's why grandma had more dreams of the future the older she got, for death is the future of all things, coming back towards us like a feedback loop."

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***



Just as I was thinking about the fact that I'm not reading enough stories set in Asia, I was contacted by Typhoon Media Ltd. to read and review Funereal. This book written by Giacomo Lee is set in modern.day South Korea, and it's definitely a refreshing read. Other books I've read that are set in Korea have had mostly Western main characters or are about the Korean War, but Giacomo Lee chose to show us the dark side to the modern day capial of Seoul instead, complete with Korean main characters. It's an almost surreal picture of a city where plastic surgery, suicide and the struggle to fit in are part of the daily life. The Korean culture is different from our own Western one, and from what I could tell with my limited knowledge of that culture, the author was able to give a convincing image of their competitiveness and their drive for reaching perfection both physically and psychologically. The prose is interesting, and even though at times it wasn't that easy to understand the bigger picture, I still highly enjoyed reading this novel. Definitely an interesting read full of references to the hi-tech and music world!



Soobin Shin is looking for an interesting job ever since her college graduation, but she doesn't have any luck so far. She seems to be stuck with her job in a doughnut store, while her twin sister Hyewon is one of Korea's famous models... Then one evening, one of the doughnut store's clients offers her a job in his new company, saying that she has 'the perfect smile. Perfect for the friendly face of death'. Although she is not sure about what to think of the customer, she still agrees to meet him. The company, OneLife Korea, is ment to save South Korea of its depressions... One funeral at the time. Soobin Shin is supposed to become the face of the company, where she will help clients getting over their depressions by burying them alive and let them attend their own funeral. South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the developed world, and Soobin agrees to try and help bring that number down. Everything seems to work perfectly, until the clients actually start dying...



This is not your typical read and it definitely touches some interesting themes. We live in a world that is increasingly hi-tec and plastic, where anything less than perfect is seen negatively. Peer pressure increases and that could definitely lead to a situation as described in Funereal where suicide rates have gone through the roof. The prose Giacomo Lee used to describe his story helps creating the hi-tech and surreal world of Seoul where people pay to attend their own funeral. Funereal is without doubt worth reading if you like (literary) fiction and sci-fi! If you are interested, the paperback version is available starting tomorrow, April 14th.

P.S. Find more of my reviews here.

[Ashley Tomlinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is kind of weird book with an interesting concept. I was very invested in the story and was glued to the book the entire time. It touched on a very real subject that I'm aware of and read many articles about it in my time - the suicide rate in Asia. The thought of being buried alive is terrifying though and I can completely see why it would make you realize how important life is.

Soobin Shin is a young woman trying to make a living in Seoul, South Korea. She is having issues trying to find a career in her field leaving her working at a doughnut shop. Soobin and her twin sister discuss the high suicide rates and the most recent death of a young actor. When Joe shows up or as Soobin knew him as "Mr. Napkin" and he offers her a job that she cannot refuse. So she started working at OneLife Korea, helping people see the value in their lives by burying them alive. Then something bad happens that makes Soobin question everything, will she be able to figure out what needs to be done before it's too late?

The characters felt like they could be real people, it hard for me to feel that connection with characters. Soobin was great and I loved that she refused to dye her blonde hair. I liked that she actually wanted to be different - that she didn't want to blend in with everyone else around her, including her twin sister. I can imagine it would be difficult to have a twin that was a model though, why didn't she just follow her sisters footsteps and model? I guess it isn't for everyone and she had a degree for something else so I can see why not but she could have modeled until she got a job. I'm not sure I would have jumped to work at a place that buries people alive but I guess it would be better than a doughnut shop.

I was skeptical about Joe the entire time. I would have been incredibly creeped out by this strange old man coming up to me after I got off work to offer me a creepy job. I really think I would have thought about that job longer than she did, she just immediately said yes. I also knew it was only a matter of time before something went wrong because everything was just a little too easy for a while there. I predicted exactly what happened, that is until Minju's part, that threw me.

This was a very interesting read and I think a lot of people would enjoy this. Just ignore the title, I know seeing funereal doesn't make you think it's going to be a pleasant read but it's not that morbid.

[Dominic · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE GOOD: Gives you a small, tiny, itty-bitty taste of Seoul.

THE BAD: To be honest, I don't know why this book is rated to highly. A 4.33 rating is supposed to be, at least according to Goodreads standards, an exceptional book. Alas, I found myself greatly disappointed in this aspiring novel about modern day Seoul.

THE UGLY: The story was not particular deep or profound. In fact, now that I think about it, the story and characters were quite simple actually. Something we would more likely in find the YA section of a book store I suppose. Once again, after having given a book about Korea a chance, I find myself wishing for more (the other book being Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin). Unfortunately, this book did little to satisfy my appetite and unless you are simply looking for a quick read, I suggest perhaps looking elsewhere to satisfy your appetite for interesting Korean literature too.

[Masha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept and a bit unexpected development towards the end. The ending was a bit bland.