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Petty Lies
A Novel
Contributors
By Sulmi Bak
Translated by Sarah Lyo
Formats and Prices
- On Sale
- Nov 11, 2025
- Page Count
- 160 pages
- Publisher
- Mulholland Books
- ISBN-13
- 9780316594486
Price
$17.99Price
$23.99 CADFormat
Format:
- Trade Paperback $17.99 $23.99 CAD
- ebook $14.99 $19.99 CAD
- Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $18.99
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Mira is a desperate young woman, hired by a wealthy single mother to tutor her lonesome son, Yuchan. But Mira is not who she presents herself to be; she is haunted by the death of her own family and motivated by the dark pulse of vengeance. Yuchan was cruel to Mira’s mother. A kind of cruelty she can’t ever forgive.
And then there is Jiwon, the boy’s mother, a bad mother, Mira thinks—or so Jiwon tells herself she must not be.
But as Mira spends more time in the family’s sprawling home, she begins to suspect Yuchan is not the culprit she’s after. Someone else in the family has been pulling the strings. Someone with a deviant plan she can’t begin to imagine.
Structured around four different letters and journal entries: Mira’s, Jiwon’s reply, Yuchan’s younger brother’s diary entry and, finally, Mira’s own written recollection. Each new section brings us deeper into a web of cruelty, consequence, and closer to the truth.
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" An appallingly propulsive, can’t-turn-away-from nightmare awaits."Booklist
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"Bak skillfully weaves the themes of guilt, family, and retribution to create a psychologically potent story that is at once compelling and profoundly disturbing. A provocative thriller that probes the dark side of the human heart."Kirkus Reviews
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"A spot-on portrait of psychopathy and manipulation. Just when you think you've figured Petty Lies out, it opens a new mouth and shows you a new set of fangs."Brian Evenson, author Last Days
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“I read Sulmi Bak's chilling exploration of cruelty and care like I was sitting in an operating theatre. Each of the narrators in Bak's arresting debut is eager to peel back their skin for each other, to reveal who they are and explain--in spare, scalpular prose--why they did what they did. Then again, maybe there's a reason they call it a theatre. Like Yoko Ogawa, Bak is a commanding and disturbing writer, fearless in her interrogation of hidden violences and masterful at ensuring the reader can't turn away from them.”Eugenie Montague, author of Swallow the Ghost
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