Abstract
We’re Going to Sing for You follows two mixed-race aspiring popstars, both in their early twenties. Isaac, a Korean-American, moved from the United States to Seoul to sign with a Korean modeling agency, and hopes to spin the opportunity into a career as a singer. Juche, a Korean-New Zealander, grew up with an elderly Korean War veteran as a father. Throughout his childhood, Juche’s father warned him of the long-lasting effects of “Project Bluebird,” a precursor to MK Ultra with roots tracing back to Korean POWs. When a viral, inexplicable accident propels Juche to the center of the public imagination, he travels to Seoul looking for answers.
Both Isaac and Juche are eventually brought together by mysterious Korean music-producer Tommy Almond — a man whose past involves New Mexican cultists, A-list celebrities, and political activism towards Korean unification. Tommy recruits Juche and Isaac into a new K-pop duo designed to bring forth an entirely new genre of music — an “authentic” Korean sound, one devoid of outside influence from the countries that have dominated the peninsula for the entirety of its history.
When the two young men move into a training facility on the outskirts of the DMZ, a darker plot begins to unfold — one with connections tracing back to the Korean War, CIA mind control, and Billboard Top 100 hits. As Juche and Isaac get closer to their dreams of global pop-stardom, they’ll both face questions around identity, cultural responsibility, and whether they want to play a role in Tommy’s plans for a world “united in song” — a world where the lines between individual freedom and global unity are confronted in violent, knee-tapping clarity.
We’re Going to Sing for You is a novel about finding creative and personal identity in a country whose artistic history is synonymous with occupation, in a global culture so connected by empire that the lines between unity and hegemony begin to disappear entirely.
