This autobiography is both a chilling story of hardship and cruelty in one of the most repressive countries on earth and a stark lesson about the ability of political leaders to warp and completely control the minds of entire populations. Few novelists could ever imagine a story so filled with danger and deception as are depicted in this true story. Raised in the North Korean town of Hyesan, across the Yalu River from China, the Lee family father was killed by the security agents of the Kim dictators, but the mother and two children still firmly believed that they were living in the greatest nation on earth. Surviving by engaging in illegal trade with their Chinese neighbours, bribing officials, and obediently worshipping the Great Leader, they were totally isolated from the outside world and from the truth and were taught and believed a history that bore no relationship to reality.
When the author, as a teen, almost by accident, crossed the Yalu to China and realized that she could not return without jeopardizing her life and that of her mother and younger brother, she bribed Chinese officials to get false documents, travelled under constant danger through China and eventually ended up in Shanghai, and then, years later, in South Korea. But only gradually did she recognize that everything she had been taught about the world outside of North Korea was a myth. In constant danger of being betrayed and sent back, she changed her identity a total of seven times, hence the name of the book. Missing her family and her home, she eventually returned to the Chinese border town and persuaded her reluctant mother and brother to join her in a perilous multi-country trek to freedom in Seoul. Romantic liaisons were fractured by the necessity of false pretences, lies, and deceptions for survival, and her personal sense of an identity was constantly questioned.
This story is largely written in short sentences with no over-dramatization. Some readers may have trouble with the meaning of some Korean terms, such as songbun, the Korean equivalent of the Indian caste system, and the unfamiliar names.
There are lessons here for everyone who values freedom and their rights, and those of others. Our basic humanity demands that we find some place of safe political asylum for people such as the author. Many North Koreans may have long-lasting effects from childhood starvation, but they are neither stupid nor uniquely susceptible to political indoctrination and beliefs that bear no relationship to reality. Democracy is under threat almost everywhere and seems to be a fragile, almost illusory system of government that is endangered by would-be dictators spreading lies and deceptions everywhere. We are all susceptible. Fortunately we can and should educate ourselves and vote.
The Passionate Reader 