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FOREIGNERS
Two countries: South Korea, an economic powerhouse; North Korea, a rogue nation with nuclear capabilities. Two foreigners—waeguk—from Minnesota: Ben, coming to terms with his homosexuality; Durst, dreaming of himself as a James Dean tough guy. They teach English-as-a-second-language at a private school in Seoul. The school is also the front for a drug-smuggling gang headed by its owner, Mr. Kim. Ben and Durst are drawn into the illicit trade—for the excitement and the money. When some on-the-run farmers from the North show up, followed by some less savory characters, a simple smuggling operation turns a lot more dangerous. A unique new voice in crime, Mark Rapacz takes you on an unputdownable odyssey deep into this violent Korean underworld where nothing is quite what it seems and life is as ephemeral as a knife blade glinting under neon lights.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 2015
3 people want to read
About the author
Mark Rapacz
22 books10 followersMark Rapacz’s stories have appeared in a number of publications, including Plots with Guns, Revolver, Thuglit, Pulp Modern, Water-Stone Review, East Bay Review, Hawai’i Review, Martian Lit and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His latest crime novel, A Burdizzo for a Prince, is out now from Fahrenheit Press. He and his wife live in Minneapolis where he continues to write stories.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 24, 2016
eh?
I'm not sure whether I hated this book or perversely enjoyed it. It did manage to remain interesting through its ups and downs, which is a definite plus. It's not a book that will leave you indifferent that's for sure.
FOREIGNERS is a novel which criticizes American expat culture, which is playing in the territory of Alex Garland's gorgeous novel THE BEACH, which is fine if you're willing to accept the comparison. My ethical problem with it was that the narrator Ben, was exactly what he criticizes. In fact, he was much worse than that. He was an existential tourists playing Scarface in a foreign nation, claiming his life felt unreal like a video game. Of course he dials up his inner Holden Caufield when it becomes TOO REAL also. So, Ben fosters an interesting adversarial relationship to the reader, which makes the novle hard to put down.
The disposable nature of the Korean culture portrayed through Ben's arrogant American eyes bugged me a little more. Asian people in this book are more anonymous and disposable than the Vietnamese people in Rambo 2. While I appreciated the pseudo-political plot, which differenciated it from most crime novels, it didn't feel very Korean although the book happen IN FREAKIN' KOREA. Interesting book if quite frustrating at times. Mark Rapacz definitely walks to his own drum.
I'm not sure whether I hated this book or perversely enjoyed it. It did manage to remain interesting through its ups and downs, which is a definite plus. It's not a book that will leave you indifferent that's for sure.
FOREIGNERS is a novel which criticizes American expat culture, which is playing in the territory of Alex Garland's gorgeous novel THE BEACH, which is fine if you're willing to accept the comparison. My ethical problem with it was that the narrator Ben, was exactly what he criticizes. In fact, he was much worse than that. He was an existential tourists playing Scarface in a foreign nation, claiming his life felt unreal like a video game. Of course he dials up his inner Holden Caufield when it becomes TOO REAL also. So, Ben fosters an interesting adversarial relationship to the reader, which makes the novle hard to put down.
The disposable nature of the Korean culture portrayed through Ben's arrogant American eyes bugged me a little more. Asian people in this book are more anonymous and disposable than the Vietnamese people in Rambo 2. While I appreciated the pseudo-political plot, which differenciated it from most crime novels, it didn't feel very Korean although the book happen IN FREAKIN' KOREA. Interesting book if quite frustrating at times. Mark Rapacz definitely walks to his own drum.
August 17, 2015
Foreigners (Waeguk) is a gritty crime novel set in South Korea, following the Ben, a young American, as he realizes again and again he’s deeper into the underworld of Korean crime than his naive pride initially let him believe. At the start of the novel, he’s an English teacher by day as the criminal family he works for launders money through a school; by night, he thinks of himself as a prop: just a big Midwestern piece of muscle, threatening because of his size and status as a foreigner. But by the end of the novel, he becomes intimate not just with the reality of his life of crime, but violence on the global scale of empires.
There is plenty of great action in the novel—gruesome gunplay and hard-boiled hand-to-hand combat—but it is intercut with insightful and gorgeous writing. Ben is a great protagonist and great narrator, both sensitive and full of rage, the product of having to fight for himself as an out of the closet teen in a conservative farm town. Ben’s anger, often exacerbated by alcohol, helps drive the plot, but just as often, it fuels a passage of scorching, brutal insight into the injustices of our world: “I was stealing its children, culturally, ceaselessly, daily, so they could grow up and speak impeccable English and get good jobs and Samsung or Hyundai or LG or, better yet, leave the country and go to a pristine American university and maybe come back to continue to build the country their parents fought and died for, the little tip of this little peninsula that they claimed for themselves, had defended for centuries from the Chinese and the Japanese, and when it looked like they were truly fucked, they had these Americans—these GIs—these waeguks who flew in and fought with them and then did not leave.”
Like Ben and the rest of the complex characters in the cast, the novel is fueled in equal measure by the urge to empathize and the urge to destroy. As such, Foreigners (Waeguk) is an unsettling but satisfying read, well worth your time.
From www.evankingston.com.
There is plenty of great action in the novel—gruesome gunplay and hard-boiled hand-to-hand combat—but it is intercut with insightful and gorgeous writing. Ben is a great protagonist and great narrator, both sensitive and full of rage, the product of having to fight for himself as an out of the closet teen in a conservative farm town. Ben’s anger, often exacerbated by alcohol, helps drive the plot, but just as often, it fuels a passage of scorching, brutal insight into the injustices of our world: “I was stealing its children, culturally, ceaselessly, daily, so they could grow up and speak impeccable English and get good jobs and Samsung or Hyundai or LG or, better yet, leave the country and go to a pristine American university and maybe come back to continue to build the country their parents fought and died for, the little tip of this little peninsula that they claimed for themselves, had defended for centuries from the Chinese and the Japanese, and when it looked like they were truly fucked, they had these Americans—these GIs—these waeguks who flew in and fought with them and then did not leave.”
Like Ben and the rest of the complex characters in the cast, the novel is fueled in equal measure by the urge to empathize and the urge to destroy. As such, Foreigners (Waeguk) is an unsettling but satisfying read, well worth your time.
From www.evankingston.com.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews