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The Orphan Master's Son
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Tim Kang, Josiah D. Lee, James Kyson Lee, Adam Johnson
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2013
An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother - a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang - and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows, a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks, and starts on a road from which there will be no return.Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”
Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary achievement, The Orphan Master’s Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers.
From the Hardcover edition.
Critic reviews
- Winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
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Beginning in the summer of 1939, 14-year-old Jacob Koopman and his older brother, Edwin, enjoy lives of prosperity and quiet contentment. Many of the residents in their small Dutch town have some connection to the Koopman lightbulb factory, and the locals hold the family in high esteem. On days when they aren't playing with friends, Jacob and Edwin help their uncle Martin on his fishing boat in the North Sea, where German ships have become a common sight. When war breaks out, Jacob's world is thrown into chaos.
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Not a typical World War II story
- By Marsha L. Woerner on 01-31-18
By: Devin Murphy
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A Flag for Sunrise
- By: Robert Stone
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Possessed of astonishing dramatic, emotional, and philosophical resonance, A Flag for Sunrise is a novel in the grand tradition about Americans drawn into the maelstrom of a small Central American country on the brink of revolution. From the book's inception, listeners will be seized by the dangers and nightmare suspense of life lived on the rim of a political volcano.
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A towering achievement
- By Skeptical on 04-24-11
By: Robert Stone
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I, Who Did Not Die
- A Sweeping Story of Loss, Redemption, and Fate
- By: Zahed Haftlang, Najah Aboud
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Khorramshahr, Iran, May 1982 - It was the bloodiest battle of one of the most brutal wars of the twentieth century, and Najah, a 29-year-old wounded Iraqi conscript, was face to face with a 13-year-old Iranian child soldier who was ordered to kill him. Instead, the boy committed an astonishing act of mercy. It was an act that decades later would save his own life.
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- By jennie on 04-10-24
By: Zahed Haftlang, and others
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The Seas
- By: Samantha Hunt, Maggie Nelson - introduction
- Narrated by: Samantha Hunt
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Moored in a coastal fishing town so far north that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She's often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean 11 years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid.
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bizarre and interesting.
- By Sadie on 03-11-21
By: Samantha Hunt, and others
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The Cider House Rules
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 24 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From one of America's most beloved and respected writers comes the classic story of Homer Wells, an orphan, and Wilbur Larch, a doctor without children of his own, who develop an extraordinary bond with one another.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-02-07
By: John Irving
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White Dog Fell from the Sky
- By: Eleanor Morse
- Narrated by: Carla Mercer-Meyer
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Botswana, 1976: Isaac Muthethe thinks he is dead. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky and the face of White Dog. Far from dead, he is, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. A medical student in South Africa, he was forced to flee after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force.
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Unexpectedly Stunning Work!
- By Kathi on 03-15-13
By: Eleanor Morse
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The Last King of Scotland
- By: Giles Foden
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.
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Worst Production Ever
- By James on 01-24-07
By: Giles Foden
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
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- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Tigerman
- By: Nick Harkaway
- Narrated by: Matt Bates
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
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Overall
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Lester Ferris needs a rest. He's spent his life being shot at, and Afghanistan was the last stop on his road to exhaustion. Mancreu is the ideal place for Lester to relax. A former British colony, soon to be destroyed because of its very special version of toxic pollution. But Lester Ferris makes a friend: a street kid with a comicbook fixation who will need a home - who might, Lester hopes, become an adopted son. But in a place like Mancreu, just what sort of hero will the boy need?
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Slow start - but very touching
- By Cath on 08-25-14
By: Nick Harkaway
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Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
- By: Kelly Link - editor, Gavin J. Grant - editor
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes, Nico Evers-Swindell, Shannon McManus, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and recraft a world of automatons, ornate clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, and intrepid orphans - decked out in corsets, clockwerk suits, and tall black boots - solve dastardly crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.
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MMMM, Orca Bacon
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 09-14-13
By: Kelly Link - editor, and others
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Oil on Water
- By: Helon Habila
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, a British oil executive's wife has been kidnapped. Two journalists - a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq - are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences.
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Entertaining and Timely
- By Lynn on 07-16-11
By: Helon Habila
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The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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Bullet in the Brain
- By: Tobias Wolff
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Overall
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Performance
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Anders is an angry, cynical man. A book critic known for his scathing reviews, he finds any excuse to dismiss, belittle, or insult. This afternoon is no more agitating than the next. Angers finds himself in a long line at the bank, waiting to reach a teller. Even after two men - wearing masks and carrying guns - take control of the building, Anders is unfazed. It's this behavior that lands him with a pistol against his stomach and a man screamingin his face. And when the bank robber, indignant over Anders' behavior, shoots the book critic in the head, his mind floats through the memories of his life, settling on one particular event....
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The Perfect Example
- By Sarah on 08-01-17
By: Tobias Wolff
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What listeners say about The Orphan Master's Son
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mel
- 05-03-13
A Nightmarish Orwellian Dimension
You are going on a journey; insert your ear buds, and be prepared to step into a vortex of imaginative chaos, oppression, corruption, cruelty--you will wonder if you need to check your navigation...is this Johnson's novel about No. Korea, or is this Orwell, Kafka, Murakami (Timothy Leary), that has hijacked your device and carried you into a surreal and convoluted parallel universe created by Phillip Dick?
The speakers blare out...The first blast of propaganda hints at Pak Jun Do's mother--a kidnapped opera singer, a *toy* of the Dear Leader. The father, it is assumed, is the Master of the orphanage. The story is told in 2 parts, the first section being about Jun Do and his upbringing --the dirty and horrific jobs he takes to survive. Here Johnson is at his best describing the tunnels and kidnappings, the rusting fishing boat and the voices that seem to come from nowhere through the ship's radio, the haul of Nike shoes fished up from the sea. The paranoia and oppression entrenched in the men is like the rust taking over the boat. Jun Do goes through several professions and levels of social standing, tunnel fighter, kidnapper, radio operator, then prisoner, hero, foreign dignitary, and eventually takes over an assumed identity, inheriting a wife, and finds love.
Johnson tells the story using several different methods; creative and clever, and at times even humorous, these many devices tell the horrors and atrocities almost like background music floating behind a scene: the propaganda speakers blare out the love the Dear Leader has for his people, while Jun Do travels through the country seeing his people eating grass or raising dogs for food; an interrogator thinks, "we ramp up the pain to inconceivable levels..in a few weeks he will be a contributing member of a rural farm collective" --the prisoner, a professor, was accused of playing pop music from South Korea to his students. The writing methods and devices are like passages to another place on the timeline of the story, adding a new dimension to reader participation, but just as easily can be confusing-- making this a read that requires real effort, but very worthwhile.
If you have ever used the aid of nitrous oxide at the dentist's office, you will relate: I started listening to this novel at the dentist's office (I was scheduled for a 3 hour fun-block). A new book, a fully charged ipod, and the gas mask firmly in place. After about 1 hour, I got a little break. I lifted the nitrous mask from my face, looked at my ipod and thought, "WTH?! Maybe I shouldn't be listening to this under the influence." When I got home, lungs full of oxygen, brain cleared out, I started over. I listened a while then thought, "WTH!?" Once you catch on to the methods, the story becomes clear and easily navigated. Johnson's novel is a piece of inspired literary construction with steps and passages, tunnels, holes, voices from nowhere... with writing that is just as alarmingly beautiful and incongruent. Parts seemed even beyond surreal to me and were not a good fit, thus my 4* rating. But, for all I know, behind that wall of secrecy, this could be complete reality with just a surreal and convoluted leader?
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54 people found this helpful
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- B.J.
- 10-19-13
A Glorious Book.
Sometimes you read a Pulitzer Prize winner, and shake your head in disbelief. This time I knew exactly why this book won. It deserves all of the praise it can get.
This book is SO real. I'm unsure of its accuracy, but I certainly felt like I had a glimpse of the Glorious Democratic People's Republic of Korea through the character's eyes. It's so rare when I actually can suspend reality and feel something on behalf of a character. In this book it happened subtly. I had a visceral reaction to an event before I realized how immersed I was in the characters and their lives. I started to grimace every time I heard "glorious" or "Citizens!" or "Supreme Leader."
Adam Johnson has done a fine job of using fiction to paint a picture of life inside one of the most closed societies on earth. He allowed me to understand it in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
The narration is perfectly suited to the book. It's not completely transparent, but gives you a very good sense of where you are and who is talking. I think it's precisely what a good narration should do - especially in a book like this with abhorrent content. I had enough of a reaction. I didn't need any overblown narration to help that along.
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- joyce
- 03-17-12
1,000 years of history
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
This book is effective against insomnia. Thanks, but still, the slow-moving story and lifeless narration could not convince me to continue listening after the first 1,000 hours or so. Or maybe it just felt like 1,000 hours, and that didn't even get me out of Part I. Waste of time, waste of money
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
oh, Lord
How did the narrator detract from the book?
OMG! don't get me started
Do you think The Orphan Master's Son needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
NO!! slap yourself for suggesting that
Any additional comments?
I want my money back.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Ilinca
- 04-29-13
nope.
I was fooled by the Pulitzer. This is a singularly uninteresting, charmless book about a topic that is currently newsworthy, but about which the author knows next to nothing. The glowing reviews must be coming from other innocent people who know even less about the topic. Very disappointing. Three stars because he got a lot of words onto a lot of pages and someone was patient enough to do a good job of reading them.
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4 people found this helpful
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- D. Fyler
- 06-27-15
Unremittingly grim
While this book is well written, the story is unremittingly grim. The characters, except for the female love interest are as finally drawn as ivory cameos. However, the story itself is pedestrian and uninspired. I could guess the ending half way through the book.
I forced myself to finish the book; I guess the fact that it won a Pulitzer in 2013 is what made me want to finish it. I purchased it because it was compared favorably to Donna Tartts The Goldfinch. Both writers are excellent in fleshing out their characters. There the similarity ends. The Goldfinch had an immersive plot and a sense of forward movement and well, Joi de vrie that The Orphan Master Son lacked.
The story itself was one long didactic screed against the evil North Korean regimine. If you really want to learn about this regimine, I would suggest a good nonfiction book. If you want an enjoyable an immersive novel, look elsewhere.
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- Tony
- 12-27-12
A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
My lasting impression of this novel will be the authors view of life in North Korea and those who occupy 'the most democratic nation on Earth'. The representation of the 'lovely leader' was mesmerizing. Romance, horror, mystery, how to build a dictatorship, a little of everything. Very enjoyable.
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- Will Butler
- 02-02-18
Good read; it’s ok
I enjoyed the book, but it’s not one that I’d recommend to everyone. It’s so sensational, but I suppose that’s the point.
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- Anatoli
- 01-20-21
Excellent, engaging, thought provoking
Can the person who has never experienced autocracy and dictatorship describe it? Adam Johnson certainly managed to do that. Exquisite storytelling helps a reader understand and feel what it's like to leave in a freedomless state.
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- Leah
- 01-31-16
This is a top 5 book for me
Loved both parts. Still not able to shake some of the images. Make you appreciate what we have in the US.
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- oconnors
- 09-02-18
Haunting
A sweeping tale of one man's journey as he tries to make sense of life in an oppressive, twisted society ruled by a narcissistic madman that is ironically called the greatest democracy in the world. This story was particularly disturbing as our country is showing characteristics of just this kind of oppression - 'fake news', the firing of officials who do not tow the party line or happen to say anything negative about the 'dear leader' in charge, the unshakable faith of his followers to believe that everything that he proclaims is correct. "Truth is not Truth", and speaking truth to power will get you banished or worse, shot. Heroes who endured torture for daring to oppose the party line like John McCain are 'not heroes'. Those who lie and cheat, who have no moral compass, but are otherwise loyal to the dear leader are labeled heroes.
I wish every American would read this book and awake to the path that we could go down in the US. No society is immune to this type of insanity. It only takes a momentary lack of vigilance, a brief period of mental sloth, for evil to take hold and flourish.
Johnson's main character shows us that hope can survive, even in a hell on earth. Redemption is possible, and love can conquer evil.
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