THE BLACK ORB

An Everyman flees a mysterious, all-consuming orb, only to reveal himself as an emotional black hole.

How many things can change in just a moment, protagonist Jeong-su Kim reflects at the start of Kim’s novel: an expression, a mood, the entire world as we know it. Or at least as Jeong-su knows it: He’s handsome and well-liked at his swanky job, too busy to call his parents but still trying to make up for his shortcomings. Then one night, he witnesses a black orb appear out of nowhere and swallow his neighbor, before turning its slow, ominous path toward the next victim. Cue immediate panic—first in Seoul, eventually worldwide—as people attempt to outrun the inexorable orbs. Are they black holes? UFOs? Foreign experiments? They are indiscriminate in their consumption, though humans discover a few loopholes that merely prolong the inevitable. While a handful of chapters explore the brutal fates of other would-be escapees, the majority of the action focuses on Jeong-su’s odyssey to track down his elderly parents. In the process, he must confront humanity’s ugliest survival tactics, many of which he himself absorbs. Various interludes pair Jeong-su up with other men, from older bachelors representing grim visions of his lonely future to a prolonged period with a younger pseudo-mentee that exposes the toxic masculinity rotting at the core of Jeong-su’s seemingly idyllic life. This emotional revelation comes in a confession whose haste undermines its effectiveness as a narrative bombshell, in part because Jeong-su fails to learn from his past trauma. Even so, while the book ends with humanity still demanding answers as to what caused the orbs, Jeong-su’s story comes full circle—or, should we say, full sphere—in a rather satisfying fashion.

A bleak read that unerringly examines toxic self-isolation, both chosen and forced.