Exhibit
A Novel
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3.3 • 13 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE
WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY DUGGINS PRIZE
"Hypnotic...a haunting romance about desire, obsession, and ambition that is sure to get your heart rate up." —Time Magazine
"R.O. Kwon’s Exhibit is, hands down, the sexiest novel of the year." —Vogue
"A highly sensory experience...lingers like a mysterious, multihued bruise." —The New York Times
"One of the most buzzed-about books of the year…fiery, sexual, and undeniably original." —Poets & Writers
From bestselling author R. O. Kwon, an exhilarating, blazing-hot novel about a woman caught between her desires and her life.
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Philip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She's been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Creating art can be a dangerous proposition, as young photographer Jin Han discovers in this powerful drama. Jin is stuck in a creative dry spell and feeling torn about her marriage to her college sweetheart when she befriends Lidija Jung. Lidija is a dancer and, more importantly, there’s something about her that starts unlocking things deep within Jin—things like her emotional needs, her physical desires…and an old family curse. R. O. Kwon does a bewitching job of making you (much like Jin) feel unsure of whether the curse is real, but still oddly haunted by it. As Jin and Lidija circle around their growing attraction, the idea of the curse and the family lore behind it start to drive Jin’s creativity, along with her desires—illustrating masterful parallels between art and intimacy. Exhibit is an absorbing read that you’ll be thinking about for days.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A female friendship takes on mythological and tragic dimensions in the haunting sophomore novel from Kwon (The Incendiaries). Jin Han, a Korean American photographer and Christian apostate, is at a crossroads. On the surface, everything seems placid: she claims that she and her diffident but charming husband, Philip, don't want children, and that she's happy with their found family of arty New Yorkers, who compensate for the parents she barely knows in Seoul. However, Jin believes she's cursed by the unquiet spirit of an ancestor, a kisaeng paid to keep men company, who fell in love with the firstborn son of an illustrious Korean clan and died vowing revenge against the family that denied the couple's love. When Jin meets Lidija Jung, a star ballerina absent from the stage following a mysterious leg injury, the two forge an immediate connection. Their chemistry fuels an obsession in Jin, and as the women's growing intimacy begins to jeopardize her career, identity, and marriage, she considers her generational trauma and wonders, could Lidija be the kisaeng's revenge? Hypnotic and disquieting, this slow burn will stick in readers' minds.
