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The Hole
- Author
- Hye-young Pyun
- Narrator
- Tim Campbell
- Publisher
- Transworld
- Publish Date
- 24 July 2025
- Run Time
- 4 hours 19 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
WINNER OF THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD
Oghi wakes in a hospital bed unable to speak or move. The car accident that killed his wife has left him trapped in his own body and under the control of his mother-in-law, as she grieves the loss of her only child.
Isolated from his friends and neglected by his nurse, Oghi’s world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his wife, a sensitive woman who found solace in cultivating her garden.
But as Oghi remains alone and paralysed, his mother-in-law is hard at work in the now-abandoned garden, uprooting what her daughter had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes…
A bestseller in Korea, The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms.
'A Korean take on Misery' Time
'A masterwork of suspense, and a profound meditation on grief, solitude, and secrecy' Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me
'Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief' Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000
'While reading The Hole, you’ll find yourself suddenly doubting everything' Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mother
© Hye-Young Pyun 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Critics Review
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A Korean take on Misery
Time
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Metaphorical holes abound in this superbly insidious and atmospheric chiller about caring and cruelty: grief, isolation, helplessness and existential fear
Guardian
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Korea's answer to Stephen King . . . a thoughtful and elegant exploration of a relationship . . . increasingly unnerving
Observer
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Suspenseful, eerie and surprisingly profound
Big Issue
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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A gripping read for fans of literary horror
The Bookseller
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A chilling psychological thriller . . . the reader is drawn in deeper with each new revelation
PA Media
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This book will stay with you long after you turn the last page. A skillful, layered exploration of where horror resides on the narrow terrain between care and cruelty, between love and loathing.
Heather Parry, author of Carrion Crow and Orpheus Builds a Girl
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Spare yet viscerally compelling, The Hole seizes you right from the powerful opening scene all the way to its nightmare conclusion. Masterfully unsettling.
Leon Craig, author of Parallel Hells
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While reading The Hole, you’ll find yourself suddenly doubting everything.
Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mother
-
Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief.
Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Hye-young Pyun
- Narrator
- Tim Campbell
- Duration
- 4 hours 19 minutes
- Release Date
- 24 July 2025
- ISBN
- 9781529961188
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Transworld
- Genre
- Horror, ghost stories and supernatural fiction, Psychological thriller, Fiction in translation, Narrative theme: death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: interior life / psychological fiction, Narrative theme: health and illness
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.WINNER OF THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDOghi wakes in a hospital bed unable to speak or move. The car accident that killed his wife has left him trapped in his own body and under the control of his mother-in-law, as she grieves the loss of her only child.Isolated from his friends and neglected by his nurse, Oghi’s world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his wife, a sensitive woman who found solace in cultivating her garden.But as Oghi remains alone and paralysed, his mother-in-law is hard at work in the now-abandoned garden, uprooting what her daughter had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes…A bestseller in Korea, The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms.'A Korean take on Misery' Time'A masterwork of suspense, and a profound meditation on grief, solitude, and secrecy' Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me'Like Hitchcock or Abe, Pyun peers head on into the unnerving depths of human grief' Blake Butler, author of 300,000,000'While reading The Hole, you’ll find yourself suddenly doubting everything' Kyung-sook Shin, New York Times bestselling author of Please Look After Mother© Hye-Young Pyun 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
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