In the opening pages of R.O. Kwon's novel Exhibit, Jin Han sits on the lip of a swimming pool and shifts the angle of her sunhat to create a pattern on her partner, Philip: "Strips of light rippled then slashed open, limbs flailing through bright ribbons." It's a testament to her exacting narrative that just one sentence reflects the novel's inner workings, from characterization and themes, to structure and language.
Jin is one of three Korean women in Exhibit, her worldview encapsulated in this image: a photographer's attention to light and shadow, and a lover's preoccupation with pain and desire, with elements simultaneously brutal and delicate. The bulk of the narrative resides with Jin, whose present-day existence feels stifling and restrictive; the second woman is the centuries-old ghost of a courtesan from the Han family's past, and the third is a ballerina who represents a different kind of future.
Like the main characters of Kwon's previous novel, Jin attended Edwards University, in the fictional community of Noxhurst in New York State. The Incendiaries was a bestseller and critical darling—included on more than 40 Best-Of lists in 2018—and its key plot points are briefly summarized in Exhibit. In both books, central characters are Korean and ex-evangelical, ambitious and passionate; they are concerned with art and faith, love and devotion, restraint and liberation. Though one minor character appears in both novels, Kwon's novels are distinct and appear to be in dialogue with ideas more than with one another.
Phoebe's perspective on music in The Incendiaries resonates with Kwon's new novel too, where "playing had to be birthed in a place without ego, in which [she] didn't exist except as the living conduit." Ballet, in Exhibit, is described similarly: as "short-lived" and unable to "last past the instant it's performed." The spirit of dance is lost in Jin's photography: "Ballet passed through bodies, its steps etched in flesh." But Jin's photographs preserve something of what is lost to her: aspects of faith and records of loss. "I staged the ritual," Jin says, "like a doubt-riddled priest clad in his slipping faith."
Now, returning to the underlying feature of that single sentence highlighted at the beginning of this review, to the pattern in those slashes and shadows—what's revealed, what's obscured. Her distrust and disdain for her recent photographs is rooted in the disconnect between her ambition and what she views as betrayal. What she longs for in her work also eludes her in her relationships. She continues to take photographs daily but views the work as disposable; she continues to live with Philip but their longterm goals no longer align—once, neither of them wanted children, but Philip's desires changed. Jin's desires have changed too and it's relevant that, between her novels, Kwon edited a story anthology with Garth Greenwell: Kink.
Throughout Exhibit, Jin recasts Korean myths; her retellings subtly shift to invite new possibilities for the traditional characters. She also debates how and whether her art perpetuates Asian stereotypes or pays homage to authenticity. Both thematically and technically, Kwon's writing is consistently precise and polished. Her word selection is that of a poet (so many short vowels and sharp consonants) and her vocabulary is that of a scholar. Her language reflects specialized research (suiting her characters' expertise) and comfort with uncommon words—like kletic and mirific, shivelight and littoral, pelagic and caviled.
Cumulatively, the narrative unfurls with recurring images. Not because of the author's preoccupation with specific (and unanswerable) questions, but because each sentence is a string, woven into a rope—a rope intricately knotted so that specific elements are visible in multiple places inside the broader structure. Angles—whether parking spaces or folded limbs. Cropmarks brand the land and tattoos coil across flesh. Punctures—whether tapers impaled or toe shoes broken down with a blade. Ash falls from northern forest fires or marks the skin in a religious ritual. Birds are caged and bra straps bind. Readers recognize the patterns of light and dark.
In the context of writing about grief, Exhibit is the shadow, whereas novels like Pik-Shuen Fung's Ghost Forest and memoirs like Michelle Zauner's Crying in H-Mart cast a light directly on loss. Kwon's characters struggle but yearn to connect like Ottessa Moshfegh's and Bryan Washington's and Brandon Taylor's. Her tight control of form recalls short story collections like Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century and Ayşe Papatya Bucak's The Trojan War Museum (which explore girls' and women's vulnerabilities), Yan Ge's Strange Beasts of China (translated by Jeremy Tiang, raising questions about belonging and bodies), and Yun Ko-eun's Table for One (translated by Lizzie Buehler, showcasing the lonely and alienated).
R.O. Kwon's Exhibit displays, in stark relief, the patterns created by what we repress, what we celebrate, and how we transform shame into joy: it's exquisitely curated and terrifically complicated.
FICTION
Exhibit
by R.O. Kwon
Riverhead Books
Published on May 21, 2024
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