Apartment women : a novel / Gu Byeong-mo ; translated by Chi-Young Kim.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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From the New York Times Notable author of The Old Woman with the Knife comes a bracingly original story of family, marriage and the cultural expectations of motherhood, about four women whose lives intersect in dramatic and unexpected ways at a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul



When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she's ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.



Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colors. Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start?



A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Apartment Women incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women's parenting labor, challenging the age-old assumption that "it takes a village" to raise a child.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

South Korean author Gu's (The Old Woman with the Knife) newest social novel focuses on four families living on the outskirts of Seoul in the government-run Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, where there's the expectation that each family will have at least three children within 10 years of residency in order to boost the national birth rate. At the start of the novel, none of the Dream Future Pilot couples has met the goal; each has only one or two children, ranging in ages from infancy to age 6. Each couple brings unique circumstances to the mix: a stay-at-home dad and working mom who are barely making ends meet, for example, or a mother who's trying to determine if one of the husbands, whom she commutes to work with, is indeed making unwanted advances towards her. The book draws readers further into this community as the families attempt to achieve a balance between home life and work life. VERDICT Via breezy, engaging storytelling, Gu's realist novel explores the roles of women, with protagonists who discuss parenting and work-life balance while contending with meeting social, cultural, and societal mores. Readers will eagerly follow this story through to see which couples, if any, succeed in meeting the concept behind this distinctive living situation. A good pick for book clubs.--Shirley Quan

Publishers Weekly Review

A group of women navigate the pressure to be perfect mothers in this piercing domestic drama from Gu (The Old Woman with the Knife). The story unfolds in an experimental communal apartment complex outside Seoul, where residents are expected to have at least three children in exchange for government subsidies. Yojin, a pharmacy cashier, moves in with her husband, Euno, a frustrated filmmaker and stay-at-home dad, and their six-year-old daughter, Siyul. They join three other families, all chosen by lottery as part of a pilot program to help boost the country's birth rate. Yojin resents how Siyul, as the oldest among the four families' children, is saddled with watching the younger kids in the communal daycare run by Danhui. Tensions increase as Yojin begins to suspect that Danhui's husband, Jaegang, is hitting on her. Meanwhile, freelance illustrator Hyonae cannot find time to work amid the demands of mothering, and her neighbor Gyowon faces criticism online after she seeks secondhand clothes and accessories for her children. Gu's quick pacing tends to merely skim the surface, but as the women's frustrations reach a boiling point, she keenly portrays the toll taken by gendered expectations. This is a perceptive novel of motherhood's double binds. Agent: Marina Penalva, Cassnovas & Lynch. (Dec.)

Booklist Review

The 12-unit Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments were "way out in the tranquil mountains without any urban amenities." Built as public rental housing, "the conditions of residence were strict," including a handwritten pledge among the 20-plus documents required for the application. The significantly reduced rent attracted 240 couples to apply. Thus far, four (growing, because another of the stipulations is producing three children per couple within 10 years) families occupy four units. Award-winning Gu (The Old Woman with the Knife, 2022) intimately reveals the community's fate through the four wives--de facto leader by virtue of being inaugural resident Danhui, who should focus more on her own family; social media poster Gyowon, whose reality is far less perfect than her public photos and videos; book illustrator Hyonae, suffocating between deadlines and caring for her toddler; and pharmacy assistant Yojin, who reluctantly commutes into Seoul with a neighbor whose uncomfortable comments turn into inappropriate actions. Meticulously translated by prize-winning Kim, Gu's bitingly perceptive observations about womanhood, wifehood, and motherhood adroitly provoke acute feelings of breathtaking claustrophobia amidst stifling societal expectations.