I’ve often read story collections of authors before their novels, but in the case of Young-moon, I believe this is less accessible than his longer works, and is the 4th thing of his I’ve read.
The best way I can think to characterize his style is: abstract, pseudo-omniscient, first-person Impressionism.
The stories revolve around a bizarre occurrence, involve a small number of characters, little dialogue, a lot of summary. Not much happens, but a lot of random-seeming observations take place. Our narrator rarely alters his detached standpoint, but his wandering mind provides a panorama of events, tidbits, details, and speculations. It is tough to pin down what is appealing about the writing, or if it is skillful or not. There is little philosophical about it. The author has been compared to Beckett, but I am inclined to lump him into the category of Kmart realism – which is a wildly inappropriate school of thought considering his background, but the feelings he evokes seem to be an accrual of non-symbols juxtaposed with free associations. He does not justify anything, just puts it on the page. You have no idea where he will go next. In this way, surprises abound. It is easy to trace Young-moon’s train of thought as he jumps from one subject to the next, and the reader can appreciate this intimate understanding with the author, that we are sharing this connective assimilation of information. Since his method is singular, humble, and straightforward in its weirdness, he can claim to be uniquely valuable, though how full or rich or deep his experimentation becomes as a work of art, consumable and ephemeral in the experience of absorbing its content, may be wholly up to the reader.
His other titles may offer more memorable distractions, and may display a more focused discipline, but these tales are unpredictable, dreamlike and peculiarly alive.
L. S. Popovich 