South Korean writer Hye-Young Pyun (The Hole) plunges her protagonist into a virtual hell in the apocalyptic thriller City of Ash and Red. Translated by Sora Kim-Russell, the novel follows "the man," a pest exterminator who remains nameless throughout, as he is transferred to a filthy, foreign metropolis overrun by a mysterious and deadly virus. His new apartment is located in a trash-strewn district, where law and order are breaking down. The man tries to contact his employer before being quarantined by an army of men in hazmat suits, but fails. Desperate for human contact, he reaches out to a rival in his home country, only to learn that his ex-wife has been brutally murdered and that he's the prime suspect. As detectives home in on his quarantined apartment, the man escapes to the streets, becoming a vagrant to survive.
City of Ash and Red acts as an allegory of modern civilization and the brutality of humankind. People continue to go to work as the virus spreads, though no one knows any victims, just rumors of victims. The virus seems to spread through fear and hearsay, causing "suspicion of others" more than anything. A faceless bureaucracy tries to stamp it out, and the way they control information is laughable, showing the limitations of human language. But it is the man who becomes the greatest symbol of depravity. An exterminator known for killing rats, he becomes rat-like in his quest for survival. Pyun fills her narrative with vivid gore to depict the man's harrowing journey. A disemboweled rat is like "an overripe pomegranate split and spread open to the sun." It is a question of the man's capacity for violence that leads to the novel's disturbing conclusion. Not for the squeamish, City of Ash and Red offers a horrific nightmare that won't soon be forgotten. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset