- Overview
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The novel describes five days in the lives of Hanbyeol, a boy who requested the Book Organizing Society to help find his mother, an immortal being with eternal youth, and Gyeonghae, who uncovers the connection between Hanbyeol’s missing mother and the “massive disappearances” occurring everywhere, and invites the reader to reflect on the victims of a tragic past, as well as the fairness of the ensuing sacrifice.
- Book Intro
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The Book Organizing Society has branches in nineteen locations nationwide. But the Book Organizing Society is only a name. The members are actually people who secretly move around and solve strange cases that occur everywhere in our lives. The branch office where Gyeonghae and Noa worked was located on the third floor of an old commercial building right next to the bus terminus. Gyeonghae was filling in Noa’s empty seat, who disappeared shortly after he found the mirror a client had requested, when Hanbyeol appeared. Hanbyeol handed Gyeonghae Noa’s business card and said he had told him to come anytime if something happened to his mother. Then surprisingly, the boy told her that his mother was immortal with eternal youth, and because of that she was being chased by someone. A boy with soft light brown eyes, precocious enough to surprise an adult. Gyeonghae was not allowed to accept a request from a ten-year-old boy without the consent of his guardian, so she first called on the boy’s father. But just as Hanbyeol had expected, his father seemed to have no interest in finding his wife.
Whilst Gyeonghae was thinking about what to do, Mr. Bear, the manager of the Society as well as a middle manager, appeared. He handed Gyeonghae a thick pile of documents and gave her a mission. According to the papers, the number of remains unearthed so far totaled an astonishing 91. He said that they had managed to block any press coverage for now, but it was only a matter of time before the case was disclosed to the world. “Find the important thing that is not important. I don’t care how trivial it is. You probably already know this, but everything that happens to us has meaning.” In that process, another request came in for the mirror that had come into Noa’s hands. A boy came, bones were revealed, and a mirror appeared--a special mirror that did not flip left and right. The fact that Hanbyeol came to Gyeonghae, and that before that, Noa had gone to see Hanbyeol’s family, that a woman who neither aged nor died had disappeared, that unidentified bones began popping up all over the place, they all seemed to be a part of a certain trend. They were all “phenomena” caused by one incident, and they were all some kind of sign. Gyeonghae had to uncover what that incident was.
- About the Author
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Choi MinWoo
Choi MinWoo graduated from the Department of Western History at Seoul National University and from the graduate program in narrative writing at the Korea National University of Arts School of Drama. He began his writing career after receiving the Jaeum&Moeum New Writers Award in 2012. He has published the collection of short stories, Hair Black Hare and Other Stories and the novel, The Domain of the Dotted Line. He is the recipient of the 3rd Lee Hae-jo Literary Award.
