This was really lovely, a story of Korean and Korean-American families -- how they come together and pull apart -- and art and loss, all done with a true and light touch and no excess sentimentality. Chung has a great ear for language and an eye for nuance, and pulled me in steadily and surely -- by the end of the novel I was a bit surprised at how much I cared about every single character. There's a lot of heart in this book, and nothing overplayed.

My full review is here. ( )

A rare delight of lyrical beauty, skillful structure, and such real characters that I am convinced they are living and breathing on two continents.

Han Hyun-ku travels unannounced to reunite with his family in Korea, having left decades before to make a new life in the States. He has left his alcoholic wife, the formidable Dr. Lee. His eldest daughter, Jane, a photo-journalist, has narrowly escaped being blown to bits in Baghdad. She, too makes her way to her uncle’s home. She has left her alcoholic brother, Henry, a year out of re-hab, but still unable to be his own man on his own.

Han Hyun-ku's sister-in-law receives them all plus her younger brother, Chae Min-suk, a divorced artist. During the visit, Han Hyun-ku’s unhappy and pregnant daughter dies of kidney failure and Henry commits suicide by stepping in front of a speeding cab. Exhausted by her war-torn life, Jane finds a soul-mate in the artist.

They have a one-night stand, from which union, Jane gives birth to a son. Three years later, she returns to Korea with Joony so that he can meet his father, and lives are put back together.

We learn from Jane that life’s decisions must be made in split seconds; her motto is that it is wisest to run toward danger, rather than away from it. The indecisive and those who run away do not survive. Jane, her father, her aunt, and her lover are survivors.

"Some people are not long for this world," Jane remarks. "The rest of us survive."

I will be reading whatever Sonya Chung will be writing. ( )

Well written story of a Korean family reconnecting with their past - good character development in a quiet story. ( )

There are those of us whose place on this earth is tenuous either because of physical or mental ailments. Modern science can help extend a life, or make life more bearable, but can it stave off the inevitable? What happens to the loved ones left behind? Sonya Chung’s beautifully written debut novel introduces us to the Han family a cast of characters so alive they breathe with each turning of the page.
Han Hyun-kyu (part of the Korean-American Hans), the second of three Han brothers, has spent most of his adult life in the United States, but has suddenly and without telling his wife packed a suitcase, left his home and headed back to Korea to spend time with his younger brother, Han Jae-kyu. The reasons for him leaving are illusive and inexplicable to his wife and daughter Ah-jin. Ah-jin is a successful photojournalist just back from Beirut where she lost hearing in one of her ears due to a horrific car bombing. Ah-jin’s life is lived in suitcases going from one assignment to another. Never really laying down roots she’s untethered by relationships and belongings. Her only responsibility has been to care for her brother Han-soo whom she has alternately cared for and intentionally forgotten because Ah-jin has always been the stronger sibling, and he the weaker. Ah-jin travels to the small Korean town to try to figure out why her father left. There we meet the Korean Han’s-the hard working town physician, his dutiful yet distant wife and their pregnant daughter. Both sides of the family struggle to find what it means to be Korean/Korean American in the modern world. Both sides must also come to terms with being “long for this world” when those they love are not.
Sonya Chung has written a novel that is at once a page turner yet at the same time one can’t help but slow down the pace in order to revel in the perfectly placed words and phrases. ( )