The Starlet and the Spy: A Novel

Written by Ji-min Lee

Narrated by Janet Song

“This story of the unlikely meeting of two vulnerable women is a beautifully woven page turner. The battle-weary woman and the pin-up girl who meet, connect, separate: each changed by the brief union.” --Heather Morris, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz

A dazzling work of historical fiction, based on true events, about two women who seem the most unlikely to ever meet: Alice, a Korean war survivor and translator for the American forces in Seoul and Marilyn Monroe, who is visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour.

February 1954. Although the Korean War armistice was signed a year ago, most citizens of Seoul still battle to return to some semblance of normalcy. Conditions are dismal. Children beg for food, and orphanages are teeming. Alice J. Kim, a Korean translator and typist for the American forces still sanctioned in the city, yearns for the life she used to live before her country was torn apart.

Then Alice’s boss makes an announcement—the American movie star Marilyn Monroe will be visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour, and Alice has been chosen as her translator. Though intrigued, Alice has few expectations of the job—what could she and a beautiful actress at the peak of her fame possibly have to talk about? Yet the Marilyn she meets, while just as dazzling and sensual as Alice expected, is also surprisingly approachable.

As Marilyn’s visit unfolds, Alice is forced into a reckoning with her own painful past. Moving and mesmerizing, The Starlet and the Spy is a beautiful portrayal of unexpected kinship between two very different women, and of the surprising connections that can change, or even save, a life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Sep 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062958952

Ji-min Lee

Ji-min Lee is a screenwriter in Korea and the author of several novels.

Reviews for The Starlet and the Spy

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a short novel, set over a few days in which Marilyn Monroe visits the troops in South Korea after the end of the Korean War. The novel is narrated by Alice Kim, a Korean woman who works as a typists for the American military and who serves as a translator during Marilyn's visit. reaAlice has a complicated and tragic past, including an affair with a married man, a relationship with an American spy, and the weight of her actions during the war. As the story unfolds, Alice confronts her past as people she thought long gone reappear and she struggles to reconcile with her own guilt. The Korean War is a conflict I feel I should know more about and while this novel hardly explains the war, it does provide a window into the destruction that conflict entailed.

[miss.mesmerized · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1954, the war in Korea is over but there are still some soldiers waiting to see their big star come for a short visit: Marilyn Monroe. Alice J. Kim, working as a translator for the Americans, is one of the few Koreans fluent in both languages and who could accompany the blond film star on her tour. But with the arrival of Marilyn also comes somebody else Alice had almost forgotten: Joseph, her former lover who turned out not to be a missionary but an American spy. Alice thought she could leave her past behind, like the war, just bury it all under the ruins and build a new life. But now, it all comes up again.Other than the title suggests, the novel is not really about Marilyn Monroe and her visit to Korea. She appears as a character, yes, and I found she was nicely depicted, a sensitive woman lacking all kind of allures one might assume. However, first and foremost, it is a novel about Alice and the two loves she had: first, Min-hwan, a married man working for the government, and second, the American Joseph. None is the loves is meant to last and the political developments in the country add their part to these unfulfilled loves.What I found interesting was the insight in the possible life of a Korean woman at the time of the war. I have never read about it and this part of history is not something I know much about. Nevertheless, the book could not really catch me. Somehow I had the impression that the two stories – Alice’s one the one hand and Marilyn’s visit on the other - did not really fit together and especially the last seemed more a feature to make the story a bit more interesting by adding a big name. „These sleeping pills are a better friend than diamonds for those of us who want to forget their past.“ Parallels between Marilyn and Alice are evoked: a past they want to forget, well-known lovers who in the end always decide against the affair and for their wife, the change of name to start anew - but the link is too weak to work for me. Unfortunately, Alice also remains a bit too distant, too hard to grasp and to really feel sympathy for her and her fate.