Is home a sanctuary for all?

The erosion of family, the spread of violence,

Society crumbling under fractured lives—

Novelist Oh Young explores these poignant issues with relentless focus in her newly released collection, The Penguin’s Neighbors. Domestic violence remains an intractable social issue. Although awareness about child abuse has increased, shockingly, in 2021 alone, forty children lost their lives to abuse. While reported cases of domestic violence are decreasing, holiday seasons still see around 4,000 reports filed. Why is domestic violence so resistant to eradication? Is it because we consider the home a private space, a sanctuary that is impenetrable by the outside world, where violence can go on unabated? Writer Oh Young-i lays bare this intimate space, depicting the hidden brutality within.

Oh is a novelist who is not known for penning "happy endings." Her stories may unsettle the reader, but they never turn away from reality. They seek out the obscured and make sure it sees the light of the day. The six short stories featured in The Penguin’s Neighbors are told from the perspectives of women and children. Women and children particularly are vulnerable in society and find the family, which should act as a protective fence, to be pushing them to the cliff. Through the nuanced portrayals in this collection, readers can confront violence, neglect, and the absence and alienation that can exist within our families.

A Child Abandoned Within the Home

The title story, “The Penguin’s Neighbors,” unfolds from the perspective of a child who is at the age to enter elementary school. The child's father has left home for some unspecified reason, and the mother, rather than finding work, accrues debt. Unable to repay what she owes, she denies reality and falls into self-deception. Her violent tendencies also spill over onto the child, who bears the abuse alone but never blames the mother. The child endeavors to lessen the mother's sorrow, hoping someone might care for them, just as a penguin hurdles obstacles.

“Delinquent” tells the story of a middle-school boy abandoned by a mother who has run away and remarried. He lives with his grandfather, who is a guardian in name only. The boy is neglected. Because he is a juvenile, he avoids punishment despite his violent actions, receiving no attention from either home or school. In his state of neglect and alienation, the boy does not know how to be good, and says- both in the story and directly to us-

"Sir, I appreciate not being punished, but could you help me not do things deserving punishment?"

Women Upholding Twisted Domesticity

"Stockholm Syndrome" features a woman who maintains a facade of a family. She adorns herself with expensive designer items but is emotionally parched. Her husband neglects the family in favor of endless affairs, and she only judges people based on appearance and wealth. Even when kidnapped by a homeless person, she cannot bear her disheveled state. However, her cosmetic defenses crumble in the face of the homeless man's story, making her feel like she was the knock-off.

"The Forgotten Home" narrates the story of a housewife with severe forgetfulness. She forgets to close windows, allowing towels to be carried away by the wind, and can't remember where she left her child's indoor slippers. Her husband and child are annoyed but have no intention of helping her. She seeks to find the cause of her forgetfulness and comes to realize it was her mind's way of protecting her.

Trading Money and the Self

"No One Knows" sketches out the life of a woman, narrating her own story, who usurps the role of a successful businessman’s wife to escape a grueling existence. She had diligently studied to break free from poverty and graduated from a national university, but poverty still clung to her heels. While she enjoys affluence after replacing the original wife, an unanticipated presence haunts her—the child from her husband's former marriage. She sees her frail, enduring past self in the child and takes to violence.

"Conditional Meetings" portrays the loneliness of a woman surviving off transactional relationships. She met her husband at a nightclub, but unable to bear his abuse, she divorces him and resorts to such arrangements for subsistence. Her life is desolate—never able to settle in one place for long, with no guarantees for the future. Her miserable existence, where her body becomes her capital, is eerily foreshadowed by the lonely, unattended death of an elderly neighbor she coincidentally meets in a convenience store.