16 May / Nuclear Family by Joseph Han [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
Grace, 21, and Jacob, 25, are Korean Hawaiian on their father’s side (three Cho generations are currently islanders); maternally, they are both South and North Korean, with their closest Jeong relatives in Seoul. College senior Grace lives at home and works at their parents’ Cho’s Delicatessen. Jacob recently moved to Korea to teach English, allowing him to reunite with extended family he hasn’t seen since childhood – his mother’s older sister, his other grandmother, and, well, his estranged late grandfather. Tae-woo is hungry, lonely, and desperate to return to North Korea, but he’s trapped “by the politics of the living and the laws of the dead,” unable to cross back home. Possessing, strengthening, and controlling his grandson’s body could be his only chance.
Images of what seem to be Jacob’s attempt to traverse the DMZ get blasted back home, where even the faraway hint of North Korean connection causes havoc in the Chos’ lives. Vandalism happens, customers dwindle, roaches appear; meanwhile, Grace approaches addiction.
Tragic, funny, and strikingly ingenious, Han’s prodigious debut is a spectacular achievement. Seamlessly dovetailed into his sublime multigenerational saga are pivotal history lessons, anti-colonial denunciations, political slaps. For Korean speakers, Han’s brilliant linguistic acrobatics will prove particularly enlightening (Jeong is a homophone for jeong, something akin to empathic connection) and shrewdly entertaining.
Review: “Fiction,” Booklist, May 1, 2022
Readers: Adult
Published: 2022