I didn't realized until I had already finished that this is the same author as my favorite short story: The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations (found as part of New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color). And it is a fascinating expansion (?) on many of the concepts explored in there. Kang's exploration of the line between fact and fiction (and now, or more apparently now, mythology) is endlessly interesting to me and gives his works a very unique and compelling voice, one obviously bolstered by his background in history. I love the way the layers of the story interact with each other and reshape each other, though in Melancholy of Untold History this sometimes becomes a bit too directly for my tastes.

One of the best strengths of this novel is the grasp of how dimensional (or lack thereof) these characters should be and the tone of the narration. Kang deftly skips between non-fiction historical text, classically poetic mythology, something coarser and more human (though not really equivalent to contemporary fiction). My favorite bits of this novel where when the voice clashed with the "appropriate" layer of the story--giving a pet cat mythological resonance or a mountain god a foul mouth. It added a playfulness that undercut some of what could easily become pretension. Meanwhile, the slightly less than three-dimensional feel of all the characters helps the story stay in the realm of myths that makes the parts work together seamlessly.

I would recommend The Melancholy of Untold History to readers who enjoyed works like: Station Eleven, White Cat, Black Dog: Stories, Into the Riverlands, or the plays of Jay Torrence (particularly Roustabout).

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.