This photo grabbed from her website shows Frances Cha, author of "If I Had Your Face." It is her debut novel. / Photo from Frances Cha website



By Kang Hyun-kyung



Frances Cha's debut novel "If I Had Your Face" reveals the brutal side of a materialistic society where people judge others by their looks and wealth.



It describes a society obsessed with looks and its social ramifications ― attractive physical appearance matters but it alone doesn't necessarily lead to the dramatic transformation of one's life.



In a materialistic society, the book hints that there is a caste-like social stratification in place, which fends off gold-diggers. In such a society, social mobility is long gone and marriage is no longer a tool to make it happen, no matter how attractive you might be.



Cha wisely uses local vernacular, such as "room salon" (a kind of bar that employs the prettiest girls in the industry to sit and drink with customers), "seon" (blind dates arranged by parents) and even "han," as a literary device to make her novel sound realistic to readers who are familiar with Korea. The Korean American writer defines the term han as "the pent-up rage from all the pillaged generations."



On top of these merits, the critical device that made her novel sound Korean comes from her meticulous, well-thought-out use of storylines that altogether assert there is no such thing as a modern-day Cinderella.



In "If I had Your Face," four female protagonists ― Ara, Kyuri, Miho and Wonna ―narrate in turn their upbringings and relationships. They all have humble, if not unfortunate, backgrounds: Ara is a mute hairstylist who lost her voice in a tragic incident that occurred when she was a teenager; Kyuri was raised by a single mother who is a vendor in a market; Miho spent her childhood years at an orphanage and Wonna, the only married woman among the four, lived with her abusive grandmother.



All the girls, except Wonna, are in doomed relationships.



Unbeknownst to herself, Kyuri, a room salon girl, finds herself in love with her client, a business mogul. He has fun with Kyuri but later treats her like "an untouchable" who dares to beg for his love. His "inhuman treatment" of her continues after she shows up in a hotel where he and his parents are set to meet his future bride and her parents. His frantic reaction makes Kyuri miserable.



"I never would have thought I would end up like this, still with no money to speak of, a body that is breaking down and an imminent expiration date," she says.



Kyuri's shattered dream of being his wife disproves her firm belief that her destiny would change if she improved her looks.





"If I Had Your Face" will be released by Penguin Random House in May 2020.