Book Review of Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo (translated by Joheun Lee)

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(Review based on a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley UK)

 

Both a thriller and a study of obsession and modern-day idolatry.

This is a novel (based, apparently, on real incidents) about four women (two are young, two middle-aged) with an obsession in common, or as it turns out, different obsessions with an object in common, which happens to be a highly popular young male Korean pop star, who is perhaps a one-hit wonder or very nearly so.

This leads to their working at cross-purposes as they work together. At the same time, almost everyone else with any relationship to the pop idol in question is likewise plotting in some direction or another and most of those who aren’t plotting at all, swiftly fall victim to the plots. Although most of the outcomes in this novel are tragic, the kidnap of the pop idol by the four women does at least save him from what his manager sees as a neat (and very final) solution to the dangerous levels of obsessive behaviour exhibited by other fans, especially when it leads to violence against his colleagues and he could well be next!

The company’s chairman, though, is greatly impressed by the enterprise and inventiveness of the young female fans and thinks they are more talented than their Western or Japanese counterparts and they would be an asset to Korea if they had something more important to do, such as resisting an invasion or overthrowing a domestic dictatorship. And although all this is set in South Korea, more than one of the characters sees North Korea as a possible escape route back towards a simpler way of life, more in keeping with Korean tradition than the present-day South Korea.

This is not an idea likely to appear in any non-fiction published by or for South Koreans, however “free” the country might be according to the official narrative. There are very few countries in the world, let alone the Far East, where the idol of constant change in the name of “progress” can be safely questioned and to worship it is the only really safe course of action in most societies these days. What makes it a fantasy is that the North is just as obsessed with its own version of “never ending progress” as the South.

The boy pop star, is indeed an idol as well as a vulnerable and wickedly-exploited young man, he is also Korea, North and South, and even beyond that, the boy is the wider modern world, secretly desperate for a less frantic direction.

Spoiler alert: he is presumed dead, but narrowly survives and is found washed up on a beach by a young woman who decides a young man with nothing at all, not even a memory of who he is, is just what she is looking for. Obsession destroys, love redeems.

Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo is published in the UK by Picador on the 5^th of February 2026.