On Trust

A collection of four linked stories, On Trust portrays the daily lives of people in their thirties: the poignant struggles of those who have become young professionals and their dreams of finding a life partner and maintaining a stable relationship. With Sang Young Park's signature vivid storytelling, this book delves into the difficulties of holding onto both work and love when you find it hard to achieve even one of them properly. As the characters alternate between being protagonists and reappearing as supporting characters, they reveal unexpected facets of their personalities and trigger new events, truly enhancing the unique reading pleasure of reading a novel of linked stories.

Praise for On Trust:

“Few writers portray the emotion of loneliness with such subtlety. I found solace—the kind only a great novel can offer—as I empathized with those times when I lost what was precious to me, ruined what I had worked so hard to build, and wandered in search of stability, yet could do nothing but drift.” 

– Choi Eun-young (author)

“A portrait of the youth that have struggled desperately to live differently from the previous generation who used to lump us all together as “kids these days”—only to find, before we knew it, that we’ve ended up with the same frown lines between our brows that they have. (…) these stories are laced with light-hearted humor, which makes them all the more poignant. Could the reason these characters ultimately fail to settle into a happiness shaped like an apartment floor plan be that they dream of a life that repeats poignant moments rather than the dull continuity of eternity? In that case, should we say they don’t believe in love, or that they believe in it too much? On Trust is a coming-of-age novel for adults who have just emerged from their early career years.” 

– Hwang Sun-woo (essayist)