God-Disease

by an chang joon

Winner of the 2023 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, selected by Manuel Muñoz. Imagine a space where cities and municipalities are delineated only by letters. A place in flux, a freewheeling confluence that does not commit to being American, Korea, or even Korean American. This is where God-Disease takes place. Strange things happen here. Identities warp and shift; sometimes they vanish altogether. In the titular story, a museum insect curator returns to her birth town, J Municipality, feeling empty and searching for answers to her mother’s absence; was it insanity that plagued her, or was it shin-byeong—god-disease? Equal parts Southern Korean Gothic and slipstream, the collection is a meditation on language, identity, and names, and how deceptively fragile they can be.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2025

Reviews

[endrju]

Emptiness is our new national identity anyway.

The collection took me completely by surprise. I went into it expecting some sort of horror fiction, but what I got far exceeded my expectations. While it uses horror tropes, it goes far beyond simple genre fiction to explore issues of national and individual identity and trauma, existential angst and ennui in post-capitalist society, and environmental and non-human hyperexploitation. And it does it all with prose that flows with frightening ease. The story "Autophagy" deserves special mention, and should be read alongside Del Amo's Animalia.

[sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

thanks to edelweiss for the drc! honestly? this banged severely. it's been such a long time since i've really been able to dive into and enjoy a short story collection like this — gruesome and real and meaningful and full of dramatic cinematic twists that COULD be trite but somehow fit the tone of this collection perfectly. every time i finished a story, I both wanted to immediately reread it and read the next one as fast as possible. again, so delighted by how truly gross and evocative the imagery was - this is quite genre-bendy, but in my mind this is squarely horror because of the tropes and traumas the author engages with in all of the stories. and that's a good thing! 4.5 rounded up, purely because I didn't like the last story nearly as much as all the other ones, but I would recommend this pretty widely, and especially to nicole (get in here bro)

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may just be me but I was surprised to find out the author’s pronouns (he/him) because in none of the stories was there any description of a woman’s body and 3/5ths of the main characters were women so yes, colour me impressed. Imagine my shock when I reached the author’s page and went, “Wait, a man?!”

I also noticed how these stories are unconcerned with matters of the body—no sex, no gender, no binaries, even—but maybe it would be more accurate to say that all kinds of relationships are relegated to the backseat. The body is given focus only when it is approaching abjection, when inebriated, vomiting, bleeding, in great pain, or dying. Animal death also features heavily in these stories as a source of bad smells (cc: Dr Ally Louks) and disgust.

In most of these stories, the main source of tension arises between a person and their environment, which includes their workplace (relatable!) and which extends to a larger culture that produces such toxic environments. Across the stories there is a sense that the characters have no control over their lives and are buffeted about by forces larger than themselves.

Full & detailed review here: https://tinycl0ud.substack.com/p/god-...

[Nicki Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

God-Disease was a fascinating collection of short stories that were bizarre and thought-provoking at the same time. I can't say too much about them as I want to avoid spoilers, but they were all dark and strange, and I had some bizarre dreams that night after reading them! Despite being short, easy reads, they had a lot of depth and I found myself still thinking about them in the days after I finished the book. I definitely recommend it to fans of Gothic tales and fans of Asian speculative fiction in general. I am giving it 4.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Maëlys · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading this book feels like floating in formaldehyde (complementary)

Short story collections and me don’t often agree but I found this one so interesting. I wasn’t sure if I was going to love every single story, but they all made me think and sit with my feelings on each of them. It really hit the sweet spot for me using horror tropes and narrative tools mingling with the mind-numbing mundanity of life. Grief, identity, trauma, all of living on the outskirts of what is intended, not fitting a mould of respectability and what is set to be reasonable. But at first it’s not in such an obvious way, it’s a small thing, a half centimetre shift that starts off that creeping tension and sense of unease. Definitely some stories I’d like to reread and take in even more details later down the line!

[totesintobooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories felt like reading tragedies that sit just a little too close to home. Quietly haunting and deeply intimate, it stirred something unsettling in me—in the best way possible.

Two stories in particular really stood out:

In the titular story, a museum insect curator returns to her birthplace, J Municipality, to unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance. As she searches, she’s caught between rational explanations and the possibility that her mother was afflicted with shin-byeong—a spiritual illness tied to Korean shamanism. It’s a poignant meditation on identity, belief, and the messy overlap between cultural heritage and personal grief.

In “Separation Anxiety,” Gwi works at a dog breeding facility and the attachment he slowly builds with the dogs—trying to reduce their sufferings to cushion his guilt. This story wrecked me. It sheds light on the emotional toll of commodifying living beings, and the quiet cruelty baked into everyday systems we don’t often question.

4.5⭐️

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

The strongest story in this collection is the title story, which is of novella length. A young Korean woman living in America travels home to curate a beetle exhibition at a local museum. Perhaps not surprisingly, she has an alterior motive, to see her mother, who is suffering from a “god-disease,” and has left her family in the US to find and be healed in Korea by a mudang (a kind of fortune-teller or arbitrator between paying customers and the supernatural world). As the protagonist looks for answers as to why her mother deserted her, and where she actually is, she and her mother’s lives entwine in an unexpected way.

Frustratingly, joon’s stories flirt with horror without actually going there. They move into the realm of the uncanny, but, perhaps by the nature of being short stories, never fulfil their potential. They are good on location though, and give an interesting insight into aspects of Korean life that I knew nothing about.

[Hera]

"...that 38th parallel that separates North and South Korea isn't a border, it's the world's longest fucking rope that we've tied into a noose..."

Oppressive, suppressive systems manifest as surreal horror that affect not only victims but perpetrators. The desire for control in an unforgiving and wild world that we pretend is civilized. When we fall apart at the seams, we pretend that something must be wrong with us and not with the world around us. Stories that share the same message: 'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society'.

"The five reasons for a structural failure are, boomed a voice from somewhere above her head. Human error, human error, human error, human error, and human error.

[Lis · Rating 5 out of 5]

reeling

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good so horrifying

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first short story collection and all of these were really good! I love how they all threw me in to totally unique situations and then slowly allowed me to piece together what was happening. Let me rank the stories in order of how much I liked them (including spoilers sry) :
edit: omg i didn't realize this because i don't check goodreads ratings before starting books but omg this book is INSANELY underrated. like wthelly? only 65 ratings and 26 reviews is INSANE wow the library led me to a GEM.

Autophagy: This story centered a GI doctor after being forced to move to a new city (one with 100 pigs for every person so yes it stinks.) In his old city apparently he was famous and did TV appearances but he was forced to move to this city for a year and a half. He HATES his new life and takes it out on everyone including his wife, who blames him for forcing them to move. That's because he reported his colleague for stealing money from the hospital then got ousted. This uprooting affected his wife's life maybe even more than his because she was in the middle of getting her PHd. Also at the same time that his marriage is falling apart, the pigs start falling sick. So the farmers burn the pigs but then too many are sick so they just put them in pits. His wife leaves to go to his parents house one night but the next day the police call and tell him she never got there. Months pass and then they call and ask about a birthmark on her leg (which he can't remember,) because they found a leg in one of the pig pits. Drunk, he leaves to go identify the leg, falls into a pig pit himself and snaps his leg, hears a vehicle pull up to the pit, calls for help, and then omg the vehicle dumps more pigs on top of himmmm.
I only wrote the whole synopsis out because this was my favorite story by far. I read it while on the treadmill and I was sooo captivated time literally flew by. This was officially the 4th story.

Structural Failures: I don't know if this is because it's the last story so it's fresh on my brain but this story was really good. It did make me anxious though. It's about this girl who's working this job that people have to lock in for YEARS and study for but she doesn't like it, like the job isn't what she thought she'd be. She's living in the student accommodations though, and her only friend there is currently still studying so she has to keep up the lie that she didn't pass the test and get a job (that's the part that was so anxiety inducing.) In the end her building burns down killing a bunch of students including her friend.

God Disease: This books namesake and the 1st story in the book is coming in 3rd place for me. Maybe it's because I read the first 17 pages of this twice but this story is definitely memorable. This Korean born woman who moved to America comes back to work at an art gallery. There she makes these bug exhibits. But she secretly came back to Korea to look for her mom (who lowkey went crazy) and left them to go to Korea to fix her 'God Disease'. My understanding of this was it's basically schizophrenia symptoms but if patients get a 'gut' they unlock these abilities to see the future and whatnot. So yeah the woman goes around to all the fortune teller people who do guts to see if they saw her mother. Eventually she realizes shes experiencing these symptoms as well (she starts seeing and hearing crazy things,) so she schedules a gut for herself. When she tells her dad, he gets mad bc apparently her mom just had a prion disease and died a year after she got the Korea (which I think it's WILD that he didn't tell her she was dead,) so she doesn't end up getting the gut but then it's revealed that the coworker she's been talking to the ENTIRE story never existed :D !

Separation Anxiety: the 3rd story in this book is gonna come in 4th. The most interesting parts were the mcs descriptions of his life as a dog farmer in this like factory thing. It's like SUPER inhumane. So that was interesting. But the overall arc of his childhood friend being beat by his dad and the mc outing to his abusive dad that he planned on going to school far away (NO clue why he did that btw,) and then the guy trying to commit suicide by carbon monoxide, eventually leaving, and then coming back at the start of the story (which makes mr.mc suuuper guilty for outing him, meanwhile the guy knew the whole time and makes a bunch of passive agro statements abt the mcs line of work (fair),,, wasn't the most compelling. Like it was GOOD, but compared to the rest of these stories it did fall the tiniest bit flat. Which might have been more of a character fault because doesn't that plot seem interesting.

Kuleshov Effect: This is the 2nd story in the book and LAST in my book. That's because this was INCREDIBLY forgettable. Like I read it YESTERDAY and I don't remember a thing. Even skimming THROUGH the story I literally have no idea what happens.
Ok jk just actually tried to read a bit and it is kind of memorable I guess... just not at the top of my mind like the other stories (like I didn't have to skim at ALL to write all ^ synopsis out). But this one is about this woman who's husband tried to kill/poison her a while back and she's grappling with the guilt of their sons death (he walked off the balcony and she blames herself for not closing the door.) She lowkey had the god disease like she was SEEEING and hearing insane things. Wdym cups are breaking directly in half and birds are falling from the sky. Yeah girl gone wild. And she was a professor but she kept zoning out and people were leaving during lecture! omg!
Like see this isn't a BAD story it just didn't stick in my mind at all.

I really enjoyed this collection! All the characters were so different and all the plots did suck me in. I ate this random library selection UP!

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There wasn’t a single story that didn’t pull me in immediately. The writing felt so human that there were moments that felt too intimate to be reading. Finished the whole thing in <24 hours

[Dakota Lagercrantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection was outstanding. I found myself holding my breath, squirming, aching and genuinely lost in thought regarding the themes. Well written and represented psychological distress.

[Alexandra Kim-Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

like the metamorphosis meets frankenstein meets gory horror movie and it’s KOREAN actually started reading with no expectations but it was just so deliciously grotesque. i feel like i don’t fully understand the depth of its symbolism and prose tbh i need someone else to read this so i can talk about it and think about it more! such a strange mix of genres and concepts that i never expected to see together

[Joyce Choi · Rating 2 out of 5]

started strong and then didn’t deliver for the rest of the book

[beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐ ½

[TomLazerBum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky, good.

[Jalen Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterwork in restraint. What threads the stories in this collection, beyond its beyond-Korean but not-quite-anything-else sensibility, is how their characters hold so much shame within themselves, yet refuse to confront that pain to the point of total spiritual destruction. And even with so much that is left unsaid, it never feels like we’re not given enough — you feel all of that pain, even when the characters don’t admit it to themselves. A unique, admirable accomplishment. Dying to see more from an chang joon as soon as possible.

[Esther Han · Rating 4 out of 5]

left me feeling a bit unsettled, but I do believe that’s the authors point…

[Bookonarooftop · Rating 5 out of 5]

some stories crawl under your skin like a spider egg, quiet at first, almost unnoticeable, and then multiply until they take over every part of you. my experience with this short story collection was very much like that.

short story collections are usually hit or miss for me. i need to enjoy most of the stories to confidently recommend a collection, and this is one of those rare cases where i loved every single piece. each story lingers in its own way, refusing to be neatly categorized or easily forgotten.

collection exists on the border between horror and surrealism. it is bizarre and gruesome at times, yet deeply contemplative. even when the imagery is unsettling, you’re left thinking rather than recoiling, forced to sit with what you’ve just read; one cannot move on comfortably.

the stories vary in tone and theme, and the author consistently blurs the lines between gender, trauma, and identity. discomfort feels intentional. at times, the writing seems designed to unsettle the reader, to make you pause and question your own reactions.

(on a side note: it may even come as a surprise to learn that the author uses he/him pronouns, especially after diving deep into the psyche of a female narrator in the opening story)

symbolism runs through every piece, and the references are deeply rooted in korean culture. without some familiarity with the language and cultural context, certain moments might feel confusing or even off-putting. for me, that cultural specificity was one of the collection’s greatest strengths. use of Korean words, the references to shamanistic rituals and beliefs, and the sense of “otherness” created by linguistic shifts all contribute to a deliberate unease. the text makes you uncomfortable, but also curious (and if curiosity wins, you find yourself researching, digging deeper, and engaging more fully with the work.)

as i already mentioned, the collection offers plenty of food for thought, but what truly sets it apart is not just the themes it explores, it’s the way those themes are left unresolved. conflicts aren’t neatly tied up. there is no perfect puzzle, no satisfying symmetry. some pieces are missing altogether; others are mismatched or obscured by cobwebs. the author places them all on the same board and then steps back, leaving the reader to assemble meaning from the fragments.
you have been warned: the final picture will not be clean, tidy, or comforting. but it will stay with you.

if I had to choose the stories i would recommend without hesitation, they would be the titular “God-Disease,” “Kuleshov Effect,” and “Autophagy.” each of these captures what this collection does best, both thematically and stylistically.

“Kuleshov Effect” is the one i feel most personally attached to. (there is a whole lore there) while reading it, there was something deeply unsettling about the way the story was told (and retold,) with ideas shifting and details changing. our memory is unreliable, almost treacherous, and truth feels increasingly slippery. if a short story collection can reach far enough to pull those memories back to the surface, i am not going to complain.

for me these three short stories especially, reflect what makes this collection so effective: its refusal to comfort, its resistance to tidy conclusions, and its insistence on making the reader sit with discomfort.

so yeah, if you are looking for something new and quite uncomfortable to read, check this one out

[Sonny Caterini · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars!

Brilliant and creative writing and themes and imagery. i actually could not read 2 of the stories (cannot handle horror) but i still wanted to give my praise to the book because the author deserves it.

As someone who avoids anything horror, I am super impressed that this book was good enough to keep me reading. I became visibly uncomfortable at many points reading it, squinting my eyes and jerking my head away from the page because the descriptions were just tooooooo good.

I love how grotesque it was and I think that if I was less squeamish and more accustomed to watching horror or being uncomfortable then I would have given it 5 stars.

I watched my first horror movie ever last week and it almost made me cry so give me a few years and i will return to this author. Also this is the type of author who i would read in like a newspaper section, i don’t know if that makes sense. He has a super unique, distinct writing style.

Lastly,

the book cover material and drawing is sexy as fuck

[Taina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Koreassa syntyneen, mutta Yhdysvalloissa asuvan an chang-joonin novellikokoelma vie lukijan ulkopuolisuuden ja epäreiluuden tunteiden keskelle. Miltä tuntuu läpäistä vaikea virkamieskoe ja unelmien työn sijaan päätyä tekemään turhaa työtä lahjuksia ottavan pomon alaisuuteen? Entä miten käy lääkärin, joka paljastaa kollegansa väärinkäytöksen sairaalassa? Niminovelli puolestaan käsittelee korealaista shamanistista mudang-perinnettä. Korealaisen kulttuurin kipukohtia pistelevä kokonaisuus, jossa myötätunto on kuitenkin yksittäisen ihmisen puolella. Myös eläimet, kuten tankeissa elävät kalaparvet, koiratarhan ulvovat asukkaat ja elävältä haudattavat siat, ovat novelleissa olennaisesti mukana kuvastamassa ihmisten roolia yhteiskunnan näkymättömässä vankilassa. Suosittelen, jos ei kavahda tylyjä ja hetkittäin absurdejakin tarinoita!

[Ruby Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘The other documentary that Jung-ha really remembered was about some Russian filmmaker. His claim to fame was the idea that the same shot of an expressionless actor became something else when paired with different footage. A steaming bowl of soup. A woman stretched out on a divan. A dead child. The man magically became hungry or aroused or sad, depending on what came next. His point was that context meant everything. That when two things were put together, meaning was divined.’

My favourite story was autophagy. This was an easily readable collection of short stories that contained some surrealism!

[Justin Jayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0.

Came expecting a disquieting darkness, but was thrown by just how gross this was at parts and just how much cultural context you need for many of the stories, which I feel has an alienating effect for a Western reader like myself. "Separation Anxiety" and the titular story were probably my favorite. Thorny and subtextual and interesting explorations into the psyche. Final story was a bit of a flat one to end on. My biggest gripe is just how little staying power I think this will have with me.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I usually don’t read short story collections but read this and loved it. The language, the mixing of genres, and the way different themes are interwoven really worked for me. Some folks may not like that the author did not “fully commit” to a singular genre (e.g. horror) within each story but this blending worked for me. It was clear the author was following where the story took them rather than forcing it to fit within constrained parameters. It also aligns with the themes very well.

[Kevin Z · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last short story (Structural Failures) stuck out to me the most, not just because it's about how a building could fail (spoiler: human error), but also the setting and characters state of mind were portrayed really well, to the point of being scarily relatable at times??

All the short stories are great in their own rights as well. They all have a mix of psychological thriller and commentary on modern Korean society, which were interesting to learn about.

[Daisy]

Damn, this is the kind of Korean rage that I've been looking for. I'm going to keep an eye out for this author in the future, what a debut. My notes below:

What a killer line in "God-Disease": "Emptiness is our new national identity." There is something hollow about modernity and hyper-nationalism that he really nails in this story.

"Autophagy" is utterly horrifying.

[Reese Brownell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first book I rented from the Brooklyn public library. Crazy choice to say the least. This book disturbed me in the best way possible- the in-depth descriptions of the horrific events had my jaw on the floor. I really enjoyed the collection of stories, it kept my attention and there was never a dull moment.

[Morgan Trinity · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bitter mix of grief and regret, and the need for control and how this consumes and destroys us! this is what each story unfolds as a collection but individually there is much to reflect about in each story. the writing is beautiful throughout and perhaps peaks at the most disgusting moments. this book understands how to blur the line between beauty and grotesque, all within a writing style that writes a dissent into god disease as a smooth yet violent one. highly recommend this collection.

[James Callan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good, but not great. I turn to Sarabande Books for their dependable, strong titles—by that criteria, this one let me down.

Entertaining enough, but I doubt I'll remember this one in six months.