The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

The key to fighting in the dark was no different: you had to perceive your opponent, sense him, and never use your imagination. The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.

“But people do things to survive, and then after they survive, they can’t live with what they’ve done.”

There’s no way around it: to get a new life, you’ve got to trade in your old one.

“People find your movies inspiring,” he said. “Do they?” “I find them inspiring. And your acting shows people that good can come from suffering, that it can be noble. That’s better than the truth.” “Which is?” “That there’s no point to it. It’s just a thing that sometimes has to be done and even if thirty thousand suffer with you, you suffer alone.”

“Forever bound to another,” she whispered. “Yet totally alone,” she added in self-reflection.

“How does a society without a fatherly leader work?” Sun Moon implored. “How can a citizen know what is best without a benevolent hand to shepherd her? Isn’t that endurance, learning how to navigate such a realm alone—isn’t that survival?”

He was clearly confusing himself and his story, which is the natural result of certain tribulations.

Thesis of the book