Tiger Pelt

A novel of Korea from the Japanese occupation of 1942-43 through the civil war to 1985, Tiger Pelt traces the lives of two children of peasant farmers, Kim Young Nam and Lee Hana, who in adulthood end up seeking a better life in the United States. Kim Young Nam grasps what opportunity he can, first with the American troops and then in a quest for higher education in the Korean Christian church. He has an lifelong affinity for academia but must struggle to gain access to proper schooling before making a return in triumph to Seoul. Lee Hana, as a woman without means, has much less opportunity and her story is far more harrowing, as she seeks not a better life but merely to survive. In the end, with all loose ends tied, you feel much less sense of triumph for her because she has so little agency.

Annabelle Kim does a fine job putting you in the story with all the good and bad emotions the narrative triggers. I learned a lot of new things about the modern history of Korea, and the things I did know were fully brought to life. One gets a sense of Kim Young Nam and Lee Hana as living, breathing people who would be hard to penetrate were they real human beings instead of characters on the page. The only thing I might find fault with is Kim’s non-Korean characters, namely Kim Young Nam’s G.I. friend and Lee Hana’s later American soldier husband, who compared to her Korean characters seem less authentic in their voices.

It seems Tiger Pelt has been in the can for a while now and has already won pre-publication accolades. I can only hope Tiger Pelt will find wide release very soon—it’s a great book.

This was really a terrific book! Well told and had me completely spellbound. Some of the hardships that the characters went through were terrible to witness, even in print like this and I know it would be too much for some readers - but the story needed to be told and I'm glad I was able to participate.

This is a powerful and a painful snapshot of a part of Korea's history from the years of the Japanese occupation from 1943 - 1945 covering decades as it moves over time to the Korean War in the 1950's and to a more recent time in the 1980's following characters to America. It is told through two stories, one of a young boy and the other of a young girl. Their stories alternate as the reader waits and wonders how and when will they connect.

This is so very difficult to read , so very brutal especially in the first half of the book. The author pulls no punches here and the punch goes right to the gut. The starvation of families, the rape of young girls, horrific war scenes, death were just sometimes so gruesome I had to stop reading for a while . I felt as if there was no breathing room , no place to take a breath . It took me a while because it is so heavy with the hardships of war and the horrors of occupation, I had to take breaks in between and read something else . Yes, it was hard to breathe but yet I was drawn to Kim Young Nam and his loyalty to his family and his love for his younger brother and was compelled to continue reading in spite of the difficulty. I was drawn to the twelve year old Lee Hana as I followed her through the years hoping that she could somehow survive. I was compelled to know how their paths would cross and I was not disappointed in how they impacted each other's lives .

Once again in reading a work of historical fiction, even though a fairly recent history, I found it to be a profound learning experience not just of life changing events but of how in spite of such awful things endured there was something left in these characters to move forward. In spite of the everything that made me take reading breaks, I'm glad I read this.

I received an ARC of this from Independent Book Publishers Association through NetGalley

Beginning with the Japanese occupation in 1942-1943 through the Korean Civil War of 1950 to the year 1985, this covers a lot of territory, geographically as well as time span and people. There are history lessons that are likely to be learned on a more intimate scale, as this focuses rather primarily on a few people and how living in those times and in that area affected their lives – fictional lives, yes, but still, most of these situations were very real.

There’s a lot of that topic that never seems to go away, it doesn’t get to be “old” because it continues on today in small scale and larger scale: Man’s Inhumanity to Man. I wish I had kept track of the number of times I closed my kindle to pause, just thinking “Dear God.” Hard to believe some of these situations ever existed. Still, the two main characters drew me in, and I wanted to see how their stories would end, or maybe more that their stories would have a happier ending.

Kim Young Nam, son of a farmer, is destined to be someone. Someday. It is his birthright. As a young boy he was drawn to the academic, finding learning to be a reward in itself. The only thing in life he holds as dear is his younger brother, Owlet.

“Outwardly, by all appearances, he was a man on the move, a sturdy figure of determination, slicing through sheets of rain at an inexorable pace. Inwardly, by his own reckoning, life was at a standstill. He was meant to be a student, not a soldier. He was meant to study, not march. “

“He had made himself into a scholar, but the draft notice had unmade him. He had worked so long and so hard to reach a place of higher learning. He had quaffed every dram of knowledge his professors served. His devotion to his books could be waylaid by no distraction until the day he met her.”

Lee Hana, a young farm girl, twelve years old when soldiers force her into a truck with other girls from her area, and thus they were drafted into the Women’s Voluntary Service Corp.

“No vestige of human feeling kindled her heart. Hope was a luxury she had long forgotten. She did not hope for relief. She did not hope for anything. She was an amoeba twitching in a foul petri dish. Nothing more.”

There are some disturbing situations that occur, suffering, need, poverty, abuse, rape, war and everything associated with it. On the other side: overcoming Life’s obstacles, fate, love, the kindness of strangers, the Circle of Life - not in any way like the Disney song – but how way leads on to way, and then one day you’re looking back at your life. This debut novel will leave you feeling grateful.

Of note: Tiger Pelt was named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books.


Pub Date 24 Nov 2016


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Leaf~Land LLC Independent Book Publishers Association, NetGalley, and author Annabelle Kim

This engaging novel tells of the lives of two Koreans, a young farm boy, Kim Young Nam, and a young girl Lee Hana, and the hardships and perils they have to face over the decades from the last days of the Japanese Occupation of Korea to the 1980s. It’s an often shocking and heart-breaking odyssey and the author doesn’t flinch away from describing the horrors of war, and the terrible experiences her protagonists have to face. Kim Young Nam, for all his poverty, aspires to an education above all else. Lee Hana is abducted by the Japanese to become a comfort woman. Both characters demonstrate enormous resilience and this could easily have turned into a rather sentimental account of their struggles, but the author avoids this and the novel remains rooted in reality. It’s quite a sprawling narrative, crossing time periods and continents, but here again the author shows her skill in keeping control and has produced a well-crafted and well-paced compassionate story which kept my interest all the way through, and which never became predictable or clichéd. I enjoyed the insights into Korean culture, history and society, and the excellent evocation of the time and place. A well-written and compelling tale of human endurance.