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The Drifting House - the debut collection of Krys Lee - contains many good stories and some truly exceptional ones. And like all short story compilations, readers are bound to gravitate to their own favorites.For me, a few of them really sang. In the first, A Temporary Marriage, Mrs. Shin has been forced to endure an abusive relationship and enters a sham marriage with another Korean named Mr. Rhee. As a result of her divorce, she loses custody of her daughter, whom she is determined to see again. But has she courted her own abuse? Phrases such as "her wounded body continued its ancient song" sum up, in a few sparse words, what the theme of the story is really about.Then there's The Goose Father - the traditional name for a father who faithfully sends money to his family overseas. The father - a one-time poet - takes in a young boarder who carries an actual goose with a wounded wing. In powerful prose, the father - Gilho - must come to terms with his true inclinations and his lifetime loneliness and alienation.The Salaryman is stunning in its understated, naturalistic prose. In this story - told in second person - we watch a solid Korean businessman lose his job, his family, his confidence, and ultimately, his very humanity. It's like watching a train wreck; it's hard to look away.There are many other good ones as well - the eponymous Drifting House, the most surreal of the lot, where two brothers and their very young sister try to escape North Korea's countryside famine by fleeing to China. Yet they cannot escape their ghosts. And in The Believer, a mentally deranged Korean American woman commits a heinous crime; her daughter tries to comfort her father by performing an unspeakable act.Ms. Lee is a young writer who is willing to take risks as she focuses her talent on those who are damaged, lonely, yearning. It's not uplifting - marriages fail, men lose their sense of masculinity, women lose their sense of value, and most everyone feels displaced. Yet it offers amazing insights into the hopelessness and frustration that define a Korea that's been through war, financial draught, and instabilities.