A riveting account of what happened to a U.S. sergeant after he
walked across the DMZ and defected to the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea in 1965.With the assistance of Frederick, Time
magazine's former Tokyo bureau chief, Jenkins describes himself on
the day he abandoned the men under his command as a young, scared,
slightly drunk 24-year-old who basically wanted to go AWOL and get
out of the army. He sobered up during a 40-year Sartrean odyssey in
the most Orwellian of nations. Jenkins provides a rare look inside
a country where up is down and down is up, where citizens are
regularly forced to proclaim their loyalty to the "Dear Leader,"
where food, heat and logic are hard to come by. He managed to make
a go of it, gamely keeping the "Organization" (his word for the
Communist Party) at bay and scrounging together a living in a
dirt-poor nation. In 1980 he met and quickly married Hitomi Soga, a
young Japanese woman kidnapped by the North Korean security
services as part of a program to indoctrinate future spies. In
2002, when North Korea was attempting rapprochement with Japan,
Hitomi was allowed to visit her homeland; she stayed and ultimately
arranged for Jenkins and their two daughters to join her in 2004.
He surrendered to U.S. military authorities and received a 30-day
sentence and dishonorable discharge for desertion and aiding the
enemy. This slender book is short on historical context, although
Frederick's long introduction does a decent job of setting up the
story and giving some frame to Jenkins's life. The journalist's
description of Jenkins's traumatized mental state during their
first interview on a U.S. base in Tokyo in 2004 (mere hours after
he got out of the brig) casts some doubt over this tale, but it's
still well worth reading.Short on history and ideas, but worth it
for the rare view inside the North Korean moonscape. (Kirkus
Reviews)
"This story by Robert Jenkins of his four decades in North Korea
represents a rare opportunity to view life in one of the most
reclusive societies in the world, offering unprecedented insights
for both specialists and the general reader."--Robert Scalapino,
University of California, Berkeley
"This is an incredible story of betrayal, love and the search for
redemption. Robert Jenkins is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe,
isolated from the outside world, and relying on his wits to survive
in a nightmarish parody of a nation where nothing is as it seems.
Living in constant fear and violence, Jenkins's efforts to grow
food, dig a well, heat his home, generate electricity and to find
companionship, trust and ultimately love, lend this rough and ready
narrative an unexpected depth. Set within the bizarre and Orwellian
surroundings of North Korea during the late 20th century, Jenkins's
account is like no other I've ever read."--Jasper Becker, author of
"Rogue Regime: The Continuing Threat of North Korea"
"Charles Jenkins' memoir is a genuinely unique account of the only
American ever to live in North Korea for most of his life and
return to write about it. Part biography, part eyewitness
testimony, part apology, this book takes Mr. Jenkins from a
childhood in the segregated South to a U.S. Army ruling the roost
in South Korea in the 1950s, to a North Korea that saw him as a
real-life Martian, but a valuable one for use in Cold War
propaganda."--Bruce Cummings, Chairman of the History Department at
the University of Chicago
General
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