Two Women Living Together by Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, translated by Gene Png (HarperCollins) ~Janet Brown

Two women living together automatically evokes several assumptions. They are mother and daughter, sisters, best friends from childhood, lesbians, or roommates sharing a flat. Wrong. None of those categories apply to Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo, yet they made a leap that is customarily taken by married couples. They bought a house together, even though they'd known each other for less than ten years.

Six years of a social media friendship had let Hana and Sunwoo discover they had a lot in common. They knew many of the same people, they both grew up in Busan, and each of them made their living as writers and editors. When they finally met for a cocktail that turned into hours of conversation, they became friends who eventually confessed they were both tired of living alone, yet neither of them was ready to get married. They loved their independent lives and careers in Seoul but they had "reached the apex of living alone." The novelty of it had grown stale.

Hana and Sunwoo were weary of living in their apartments but real estate prices kept  both of them from buying a place on their own. But, they discovered, if they pooled their incomes and got a loan from a bank, they could end up with what they wanted. The problem was deciding what they wanted, as their separate tastes and needs came into play.

Every home buyer knows how this purchase can affect a relationship, especially when pooled resources come into play. Perhaps because they had a friendship of recent duration, the two women were able to compromise while being clear and businesslike in their financial arrangements. They took equal financial responsibility in all aspects of home ownership.

This was the most clearcut solution the two of them were to find in their unconventional housing arrangement. More difficult was the way they managed their daily lives. Hana was a minimalist who kept a tidy house. Sunwoo took great pleasure in shopping and accumulating but housekeeping was the last thing on her mind. Since Hana worked at home while Sunwoo's workdays frequently lasted well into the night, housework became Hana's burden, and one that she resented. After a few domestic battles, the two women came to an agreement,  learned to live with each other's different approaches, and hired a part-time housekeeper. 

Sunwoo loves to cook. Hana is happy to do the clean-up work. Each of them brought two cats into their new household and turned the four felines into a blended family. Both women are avid readers and movie-goers. When Hana is hospitalized, Sunwoo is her companion and caregiver. When Sunwoo gets into accidents that require medical care, Hana is there for her. When Covid comes with its mandatory isolation, the two women become best friends.

"Living with a good friend is essentially having a neighborhood friend who lives zero meters away," Sunwoo observes, while often mentioning how much she and Hana love to drink. At times they fantasize about returning to Busan and opening a pub by the ocean. Instead they fall into another way of working together, one that's made them famous in Korea.

It's probably inevitable that two writers who live together will eventually write about it. Hana and Sunwoo joined forces, wrote Two Women Living Together, and watched it turn into an international bestseller. "It was as if our society had been waiting for a book like this," Hana says. The success of their collaboration is overwhelming, letting them pay off their mortgage and turn their backs on employers. In addition to writing a sequel about traveling together, they've created a podcast that's been picked up by Apple and Spotify. "It's like we're a quaint family restaurant that has received a Michelin star," Hana concludes.

Told in alternating voices, Hana and Sunwoo present their story with humor and candor, in short chapters that resemble blog posts. The simplicity of Two Women Living Together doesn't obscure the truth that these two women took a big chance and succeeded, making their adventure an enriching one, in every possible way.