8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
A Review of Mirinae Lee's 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
by Maeve Rose
When I first picked up Mirinae Lee’s 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster, I knew to expect an old woman’s tales of living through two wars. What I didn’t expect was a character who reinvented herself so thoroughly with each “life” that I was never sure which character in the chapter was our protagonist. Lee keeps the reader dancing between possible truths until the 8th and final life.
Lee’s debut novel follows Mook Miran, though we are never really sure if that is her true name. Born in North Korea, escaping under secretive circumstances, she is a survivor of both the Pacific War and the Korean War. As a woman from a cruel upbringing, our protagonist mastered the art of adapting to her surroundings as a way to stay one step ahead of the dangerous men in her life. Some of the choices she makes are heroic, some are debatably unethical, and some, punishable by death. But whose granny doesn’t have a complicated past?
What first made me pick this book off the shelf was the word “trickster.” A word with connotations of mythology, evil, fraud, change, and rogueishness to name a few. Our protagonist embodies all of these meanings easily. When a well-meaning employee of the retirement home where Mook Miran lives asks her for three words to describe her life, she instead gives her eight: spy, lover, mother, slave, escape artist, murderer, and terrorist.
Some of the content of the book is quite graphic, particularly when it comes to women being used as objects of desire in a time of extreme poverty and violence in Miran’s life. Readers shouldn’t be turned away by the content, but should proceed with awareness.
Maeve (she/her) is a third year Writing major with a focus on Fiction. Her writing explores themes of the queer experience, mental illness, feminism, and connections to nature. She has been a speaker at Ottawa’s Capital Pride festival and helped to found her high school’s first Writing Club alongside the Writers Collective of Canada. In her spare time she enjoys yoga, Agatha Christie novels, and spending far too much money on bubble tea.