Korean author Change-rae Lee, On Such A Full Sea

On SUCH a FULL SEA is a vast pool of story telling.  This is not necessarily praise for Korean author Change-rae Lee who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.  The genre of FULL SEA is futuristic apocalyptic sic-fi combined with a haunting love story, a strong, independent heroine and a plethora of sinister people & plot twists.  The story is set in the not too distant future in a strange new world with hierarchies as in Orwell's ANIMAL FARM & oppressive mandates similar to Huxley's 1984.  The closet comparison is McCarthy's The ROAD where self-preservation is a daily peril with the terrifying unknown around every bend.  Change-rae Lee uses an unidentified narrator from her community "B-Morph" to tell the tale of young Fan who abandons the safety of "B-Morph" where she is sheltered from the apocalyptic chaos outside their borders.  There is an omnipresent fear of being ostracized and forced out to survive (highly unlikely) on her own.  Fan chooses to leave the mind-numbing life in "B-Morph" to find her lover Reg (& father of her unborn child.)  Reg simply vanished after having been called to meet with the Charters (the privileged class.)  We follow Fan's unpredictable & disturbing odyssey as she searches for Reg & an older brother.  Lee's writers gifts casts a fetching tale that lures the reader into caring for our heroine.  However, once caught in Lee's net, I felt I was  gasping for air.  On Such a Full Sea has a mesmerizing power but its appeal lies for those who find a dystopia exciting rather than disturbing.