
The Orphan Master's Son
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Tim Kang
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Josiah D. Lee
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James Kyson Lee
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Adam Johnson
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By:
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Adam Johnson
About this listen
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.
©2011 Adam Johnson (P)2011 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor, William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful white man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart.
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A meandering audiobook...
- By Daniel on 09-03-04
By: Edward P. Jones
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Devil in the Grove
- Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
- By: Gilbert King
- Narrated by: Peter Francis James
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Arguably the most important American lawyer of the 20th century, Thurgood Marshall was on the verge of bringing the landmark suit Brown v. Board of Education before the US Supreme Court when he became embroiled in a case that threatened to change the course of the civil rights movement and to cost him his life. In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming, and citrus barons got rich on the backs of cheap Jim Crow labor with the help of Sheriff Willis V. McCall, who ruled Lake County with murderous resolve....
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the fight for civil rights
- By Jean on 01-17-14
By: Gilbert King
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Empire Falls
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 20 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his life.
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Hugely Enjoyable
- By margaret on 01-23-12
By: Richard Russo
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Dear Reader
- The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il
- By: Michael Malice
- Narrated by: Marcus Freeman
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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No country is as misunderstood as North Korea, and no modern tyrant has remained more mysterious than the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Now, celebrity ghostwriter Michael Malice pulls back the curtain to expose the life story of the "Incarnation of Love and Morality". Taken directly from books spirited out of Pyongyang, Dear Reader is a carefully reconstructed first-person account of the man behind the mythology.
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Great book
- By Rodney on 05-24-17
By: Michael Malice
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The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, as well as seven other awards, and now an HBO® Original Limited Series on Max, The Sympathizer has sold over one million copies worldwide and is one of the most acclaimed books of the 21st century. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabokov, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal.
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Recommended With No Reservations
- By SG68 on 05-13-25
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Gilead
- By: Marilynne Robinson
- Narrated by: Otto Mellies
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Auf dem Sterbebett schreibt John Ames einen Brief an seinen siebenjährigen Sohn. Dem Kind will er alles erklären: Die Einsicht, mit der man das eigene Leben auf einen Schlag begreift, den Trost, der in einer einzelnen Berührung liegen kann, und den Ort, der sein Ende beschließt: Gilead, die kleine Stadt unter dem unermesslichen Himmel des Westens, leicht wie Staub und so schwer wie die Welt.
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The Guest
- A Novel
- By: Emma Cline
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome. A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she’s been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world that is, at first, closed to her.
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We’ve known an Alex
- By Will Cathcart on 06-20-23
By: Emma Cline
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The Flamethrowers
- A Novel
- By: Rachel Kushner
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Reno, so-called because of the place of her birth, comes to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles and speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity—artists colonize a deserted and industrial SoHo, stage actions in the East Village, blur the line between life and art. Reno is submitted to a sentimental education of sorts—by dreamers, poseurs, and raconteurs in New York and by radicals in Italy, where she goes with her lover to meet his estranged and formidable family.
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Overrated
- By Amazon Customer on 09-30-24
By: Rachel Kushner
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Winner of the National Book Award
- A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather
- By: Jincy Willett
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in Rhode Island, Winner of the National Book Award tells the story of twins who could not be more different. Abigail Mather is a woman of passionate sensual and sexual appetites, while her sister, the book-loving local librarian Dorcas, lives a quiet life of the mind. But when the sisters are sought out by the predatory and famous poet, Guy DeVilbiss, who introduces them to Hollywood hack writer and possible psychopath Conrad Lowe, they rapidly become pawns in a game that leads to betrayal, shame and ultimately, murder.
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Title is COMPLETELY MISLEADING
- By Anonymous User on 03-20-24
By: Jincy Willett
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The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
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Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
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Empire Falls (Danish Edition)
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Peter Bøttger
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Miles Roby har langet burgere over disken i Empire Grill i tyve år, og derfra kan han se ned ad hovedgaden i den engang så driftige industriby Empire Falls og fornemme byens puls, som nu slår meget langsomt. For Whiting-familien, der ejer fabrikkerne og det meste andet på egnen, har flyttet produktionen væk fra byen, og det har skruet livet i Empire Falls ned på vågeblus.Så det er bekymrede kunder, der letter deres hjerte over for Miles - som har sine helt egne problemer.
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It's all Greek to me!
- By Gashea on 11-06-16
By: Richard Russo
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A Brief History of Seven Killings
- By: Marlon James
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, and others
- Length: 26 hrs
- Unabridged
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Winner, The Man Booker Prize, 2015 Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters - assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts - A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s.
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A Tough Read
- By KP on 05-07-16
By: Marlon James
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March
- By: Geraldine Brooks
- Narrated by: Richard Easton
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story "filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man" (Sue Monk Kidd). With "pitch-perfect writing" (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs.
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Great book, greatly narrated
- By Paula on 07-30-06
By: Geraldine Brooks
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?
A Nightmarish Orwellian Dimension
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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.
A Glorious Book.
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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 moneyHow would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
oh, LordHow did the narrator detract from the book?
OMG! don't get me startedDo you think The Orphan Master's Son needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?
NO!! slap yourself for suggesting thatAny additional comments?
I want my money back.1,000 years of history
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nope.
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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.
Unremittingly grim
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A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
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Good read; it’s ok
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Excellent, engaging, thought provoking
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This is a top 5 book for me
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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.
Haunting
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