Farzah Draki

And so the title, the character is sort of the everyday woman.

Yeah.

So Kim Joong is at her mother-in-law's house.

She's there for the holidays with her husband and small child.

And basically, she has what we would describe a dissociative episode.

So she starts to talk to her extended family, or rather her husband's family, in the third person.

It's the beginning of her kind of mental breakdown.

Yeah.

Now, I don't know if you've ever sort of said a bad word to your in-laws.

Not once.

No?

Never?

Well, you're more well-behaved.

But, you know, it's not – I think this is another interesting example of where the cultural setting is so important because –

Maybe talking out or speaking out against your extended family isn't something that would be considered a big deal, but in socially conservative South Korea, it's a big deal.

Like her husband drags her out of the house and sort of covers her mouth and it is...

What is effectively the start, I guess, would you say, Kate, the beginning of her mental breakdown?

As you say, it's divided into the childhood, adolescence, early adulthood and marriage.

And basically the book becomes sort of a litany of all the injustices she's faced as a woman in South Korea.

So as a child, it starts from, you know, when they're at the dinner table, rice is served first to the father and the brother and then the sister and the mother, which is a really nice detail, I thought.