Seven Years of Darkness by You-Jeong Jeong

Well, that was kind of ridiculous…
The title and summary of this novel gave me the impression that the story would be very much focused on Sowon, the son of mass murder, who seven years after his father’s crimes receives a mysterious package that forces him to confront his past. And in some ways, we are given that. Sadly, the narrative is less concerned with Sowon piecing together these past events than with simply retelling everything that happened in one go. The majority of this novel details the event that occurred seven years prior, without any insights from the present, but in a blow-by-blow type of account. See, the package Sowon receives contains a manuscript. The manuscript, penned by Sowon’s guardian, recounts what happened at Seryong Lake, giving us the perspective of most of the people involved. Sowon’s guardian, Ahn Sungwhan, had until that morning been sharing his living spaces with him. All of a sudden, he disappears, and Sowon receives this manuscript.
The story in the manuscript primarily follows Sungwhan, who was working as a security guard at Seryong Lake, a ‘first-tier’ reservoir located in a remote village; Dr. Oh Yongje, who owns the arboretum on the reservoir; and Sowon’s father, Hyonsu, a former baseball player who has just been hired as the new head of security at Seryong Dam (making him Sungwhan’s boss).
A tragic night leads to the lives of these men to become inexorably entwined. The inciting incident happens early on, and what follows are pages and pages of a kind of ‘cat and mouse’ game. The ‘baddie’ is revealed early on, and he seems to posses only vices. He’s a mastermind and brilliant gas-lighter who missed out on a career as a detective. The two others characters are far more hapless, and their attempts to escape the baddie’s clutches inevitably fail.
The novel jumps back to ‘seven years later’ briefly in the middle, and only for a few pages, and at the very end. The rest of the narrative treats these past events as if they are just occurring, so no new insights or even foreshadowing is offered. Two of the men are seemingly unsympathetic, prone to anger and brutish, even druknkunly, behaviour. The other one seems to become loyal to one of them for no reason whatsoever. The wives of Hyonsu and Yongje are portrayed as somewhat hysterical. Hyonsu’s wife in particular is made into a huge ‘nag’, and her character is restricted to that role.
The two children, Sowon, who was 11 at the time, and Yongje’s daughter are very much secondary to the mind-games between the adults. Yongje’s daughter dies early on and we never learn anything substantial about her, although the author does attempt to create a connection between her and Sowon.
The whole thing was cheesy. The characters were caricatures, the plot was surprisingly boring (just these three men try to outsmart each other), and I’m not sure why the novel was titled what it was. ‘Present’ Sowon doesn’t have to investigate anything, he simply reads this manuscript.
That Sungwhan was able to narrate the events from Yongje’s perspective wasn’t very convincing.
As thrillers go, this left me feeling kind of flat. Maybe readers who don’t expect there to be more of a conversation between past and present may find this to be a gripping read…

My rating: 2 ½ stars

Read more reviews on my blog / / / View all my reviews on Goodreads

Advertisement