His novel excites readers just by the name 'Eun Hee-kyung'.
The unique, delicate gaze, intelligent and sophisticated prose, and sharp insight that digs into the truth of life have always been the power of Eun Hee-kyung's novels, which have captivated us.
After 16 years of debut, his world of art, which has shown various transformations in each work, has now become deeper and more relaxed.
The new full-length novel, 『A Calm Life』, released after two years, shows the shining essence of Eun Hee-kyung's novels, containing all the achievements she has accumulated over the years.
The brilliant sentences about love, loss, and loneliness once again draw us into the charm of Eun Hee-kyung's novels.

Love comes to those who are lost
After the fascination ends, life begins.

If the essence of Eun Hee-kyung's novels is to coolly depict the ontology of individuals and the nature of their relationships in modern society, "A Calm Life" can be said to be the most Eun Hee-kyung-like novel, deeply exploring fascination, loss, loneliness, and pain through the relationship called love.
There are relationships that flow and become entangled in each other's loneliness and misunderstanding, and within them, there are moments when our inner weakness and meanness are revealed.
The way she captures it, sometimes coolly, sometimes humorously, and sometimes warmly, truly evokes admiration for Eun Hee-kyung.

The story of two people leads 『A Calm Life』.
Joseph, a cynical and hypocritical novelist, and Ryu, a mysterious woman.
And the unique characters surrounding them make the story more colorful.
The novel begins with a story about Ryu's father and mother.
A father who was irresponsible, impulsive, and easily swayed by momentary fascination, while a mother who chose to endure loneliness and pain in order to maintain the narrative of life and family.
In Ryu's prehistory, there were two worlds that could not be reconciled.
Ryu confesses.
“It was by riding on the current of his mother that he passed through the countless hatreds, contempts, fatigues, and desires that had tormented Ryu throughout his life, but what helped Ryu endure his loneliness was the remaining fascination with the life he had inherited from his father.” Drawn by that fascination, Ryu once loved Joseph passionately, but he left him before the last step.

The end of the world they were going to was not S City.
It was the vanishing point where passion ended.
Fascination doesn't last and passion has a certain amount.
It was this temporary nature that made them even more passionate.
Ryu had a premonition that the day the time of fascination and passion given to them would end, he would be put on a plane and returned alone.
(…) Ryu chose loss over the service of self-deception.
I chose solitude over pain.
(…) When Ryu left S City alone that summer, he cried, but he did not regret turning back after taking the last step in his relationship with Joseph.

(pp.263~264)

Meanwhile, Joseph, a novelist, is a character armed with utter cynicism and hypocrisy.
He clings to his artistic self-consciousness, persistently mocks the world of patterns called life and ideology, and longs to be free from all relationships. However, he is a degenerate writer who cannot write a single word of his work in the world of stubborn commonness and patterns that surrounds him.
He is visited by his former student, Ian, who is preparing a film about artists.
He seeks revenge by exposing Joseph's past scandal through the film.
Joseph, despite his contempt for Ian's naive yet hypocritical side, decides to appear in the film because of the possibility that he can meet Ryu through Ian.
And the characters surrounding him, such as the cheeky and provocative woman Do-kyung and the young woman Lee Chae who suddenly approaches Joseph and wants to become the protagonist of his novel, add color to the story.

"There is no lover, only love.

Love, whose name was it?”

The novel depicts the overlap and intersection of the two worlds as Joseph's daily life and Ryu's past intersect.
Joseph's merciless venom directed at the corrupt world, including himself, is sharp yet at the same time evokes a bittersweet compassion, and the narrative of Ryu, which seems to be hidden but is revealed here and there, envelops the entire story with a hazy and lyrical color.
And the deep insights into life and love that are scattered throughout enrich the story through delicate sentences layer by layer.
Those brilliant aphorisms that make you ponder on fascination and loss, loneliness and pain, misunderstanding and compassion are of course a great pleasure to read Eun Hee-kyung's novels, and they are so captivating that you'll want to memorize them and carry them around with you.
It is also exciting to sense another transformation in Eun Hee-kyung's novel world in those sentences, which gradually add a feeling of depth, weight, and even loneliness beyond their sharpness and exhilaration.

Other people are beings who are destined to misunderstand each other forever, but the moment we respect each other's misunderstandings, we can unite in compassion.
Ryu's life flowed through the solidarity of solitude and misunderstanding.
Ryuseum could sing even in the dark.

(/ p.265)

As with all good novels, the great appeal of "A Calm Life" lies in its complex and multi-layered nature, offering fascinating insights and inspiration no matter which perspective you read.
This novel can be read as “a desperate attempt to preserve one’s individuality” and “the sorrow of one who is moving away from the fundamentals” (Yeom Mu-ung), or as “a desolate biography, including even the prehistory” (Kim Hye-ri), of Ryu and his mother.
Or you can focus on love and the fascination that makes it possible, or you can read it with a focus on the loneliness and pain that comes after love ends.
In such cases, the feeling given by the title ‘A Calm Life’ becomes even more multi-layered and fascinating.
Either way, the fascination and loneliness felt in that 'calm' world conveys a taste that is both infinitely bittersweet.
The author says, “The things that happened, the people I met, and the scenery that stood out while serializing took up a part of the novel as if by chance,” and that “I think I should call this novel a novel of chance.” However, the layered and dense web of meaning created by the intertwining and fitting together of those “chance” parts makes me admire once again the author’s skill in extending chance into an inevitable work.

Therefore, 『A Calm Life』 is a romance novel, a novel about society, and an excellent educational novel.
Above all, it is a masterpiece that melts fascinating reflections and thoughts on life and love in our time into a captivating story, and it is a work that can be called an outstanding achievement of Eun Hee-kyung's literature.
This is a work that will once again bring joy to readers who read Eun Hee-kyung.