Midnight Timetable

Chung (Cursed Bunny) serves up a chilling novel-in-ghost-stories set within the eerie, echoing halls of a mysterious research institute that exists to both study cursed objects and keep them contained. At the institute, doors vanish, footsteps echo with no one there, and employees disappear as easily as memories. One night shift, worker Sook sets out to catalog the supernatural histories attached to various items and people in the facility, among them a handkerchief charged with the fury of sibling rivalry, a stolen sneaker seeking revenge, and a man so entirely unremarkable that it takes a while for Sook to notice how often he appears at random and blocks the way. Sook goes from room to room at the institute, each one opening into a discrete tale of horror, that ultimately come together to form a dark mirror reflecting deeper societal traumas, like animal testing, conversion therapy, domestic abuse, and the dehumanizing grind of late-stage capitalism. With a bone-dry wit and biting allegorical edge, expertly captured in Hur’s translation, Chung turns the haunted-object trope into a vehicle for radical empathy and sharp critique. Part fable, part ghost story, and part social commentary, this is a beautiful and devastating excavation of how people make sense of the world’s violence and tragedies. (Sept.)