Foreigners (Waeguk)

Advance praise for this dark, roller coaster ride of a novel:

"Foreigners is a mesmerizing trip into the seedy underworld of South Korea and a revelatory look at the lost and violent characters who dwell there."
--David Oppegaard, author of And the Hills Opened Up

"Foreigners is a kaleidoscope of dark dreams and harsh realities."
--C.T. McNeely, Editor-in-Chief, Double Life Press and Dark Corners

"Foreigners is an ambitious, incendiary explosion of a novel...that calls to mind the work of Irvine Welsh and Anthony Burgess."
--Mike Miner, author of Prodigal Sons and The Immortal Game

"Rapacz deftly flips the meaning of this crime novel's title, as the ugly Americans are the titular Foreigners here, a gaggle of punks who've come to Korea under the guise of teaching English as a second language, but learning violence and the imprecise art of drug-slinging as a third. These junior crime lords are taught some stuff the hard way, as Al Pacino explained to wannabe gangster Sean Penn in Carlito's Way: 'You can't learn about it in school, and you can't have a late start.' With a detailed tour of Korean back alleys and restaurants, fun and fatal culture clashes, some timely North Korean action, and some gritty, doomsayer narration from the reckless antihero, it all heads for disaster in surprising ways, and you might learn some new words here and there, too, like I did, and only a third of them might be profanity."
--David James Keaton, author of The Last Projector and Fish Bites Cop!

Mark Rapacz's stories have appeared in a number of publications, including Plots with Guns, Revolver, Thuglit, Dark Corners, The Booked. Anthology, Water-Stone Review, East Bay Review, Martian Lit and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. His novel, City Kaiju, won a 2014 Golden Goodis for best work of science fiction. He and his wife live in Minneapolis where he continues to write stories.