Crystal Hana Kim

4.25⭐️

“I am on a peninsula, or to be more precise, the southern half of a peninsula broken in two. But in my mind, I am the land itself. I watch the waves, and when the tides come near, I will them to retreat, retract into their uncontained bodies.”

Daegu, South Korea, 2011: Forty-six-year-old Eunju is visited by Narae, a Korean American woman in her thirties, who has come to return an item of hers that was in the possession of her recently deceased father Sangchul. Narae also expresses her desire to know more about her father’s life in South Korea and how he came to be in possession of something that belonged to Eunju. The narrative follows Eunju as she shares her story with Narae detailing a traumatic history she shares with Sangchul from three decades ago when they were both teenagers and inmates at The Stone Home, a state-sanctioned reformatory center.

Inspired by true events, The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim is an intense and incredibly moving coming-of-age story that sheds light on a dark period in the history of South Korea. Written in lyrical yet powerful prose, the story alternates between past and present timelines – the present timeline focusing on Enju’s interactions with Narae and past events presented from the perspectives of Eunju and Sangchul in alternating chapters. The author presents an unflinching look into the horrifying conditions and human rights violations in reformatory centers that housed women and children rounded up off the streets, labeled as “vagrants” in need of rehabilitation. Detainees were subject to forced labor, barbaric punishments and unimaginable abuse in the hands of those responsible for running the institution and fellow inmates who were charged with supervising others. Eunju’s trauma has followed her into her adulthood - evident in how she struggles to frame her thoughts while recollecting the truth of her experiences in The Stone Home, where she, then only fifteen, and her mother were forcibly detained. Sangchul’s story is one of personal loss, disillusionment, and transformation - trapped in an environment that promotes violence and cruelty Sanchul struggles to preserve his humanity in the face of devastating loss and pressure to conform to what the governing authorities expect of him. The author is brutally honest in her depiction of the dynamics within the center– the friction and rivalries, the power play, the moments of empathy and solidarity between the detainees and the difficult choices Eunju and Sangchul and others have to make in order to survive in a system designed to break them down.

I always appreciate fiction that sheds light on stories and historical facts that were previously unknown to me and this novel is no exception. The story features a large cast of characters, each of whom has a distinct role to play in the story. My only niggle is that I wish we had gotten a bit more information on the events that transpired during the gap years, between past and present timelines including the fate of some of the supporting characters.

Please read the Author’s Note where she briefly discusses the historical context of this story and the people places and events that inspired this novel, In reality, these homes were part of a state-sanctioned strategy in a time of major political changes in the years leading up to the 1988 Olympics intended to clear the streets of those deemed unwanted including political protesters, the homeless and the disabled among others.

Given the subject matter, this is not an easy read but it is definitely an important story that needs to be told and shared and talked about.

Many thanks to the author and William Morrow for the digital review copy via NetGalley and the gifted ARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.… (altro)

This debut novel is set against the backdrop of the Korean war. Two teenagers, Haemi Lee and Kyunghwan have had a childhood friendship that blossoms into something romantic. They live in dilapidated refugee camps, Haemi with her mother and beloved brother, who suffers from a chronic illness. Haemi eventually decides, with encouragement from her mother, to marry Jisoo, who offers more financial security than Kyunghwan. This is a decision she regrets when she eventually reunites with Kyunghwan. Haemi has four daughters, one of whom may be fathered by Kyunghwan.

If You Leave Me covers sixteen years in the tumultuous, war-torn history of Korea seen from five perspectives. The characters are all strongly drawn, as is the constant upheaval of their country.

Thank you to Goodreads and to the publisher for this book.… (altro)

A rollercoaster of emotion, this story gave a glimpse of what it was like for Koreans to live during the Korean War. It did provide a lot of historical background but was rather hard to read chapter by chapter from alternating characters' viewpoints. The theme was consistently romantic and suspenseful. I was left very sad at the end of the story. I don't want to give away spoilers, but lack of communication is a HUGE problem throughout the book. I am not sure if this is cultural, but I do think that the ending of this story could have been different in so many ways. Every character was flawed, yet had good qualities. However, of all the characters, I could not feel for Jisoo, except briefly when he was healing from his wounds. To me, the book does not really begin until the last 30 or 40 pages. Then to me it is hard to put the book down until it is finished.… (altro)

When Communist-aided forces in northern Korea invade the south, sixteen-year-old Haemi, her mother, and young brother, Hyunki, who’s tubercular, flee for their lives on foot. A year later, in 1951, the refugee family lives a precarious existence in Busan, a seaport nestled in the tip of the Korean Peninsula. Haemi goes to school and is bright enough to stay with it, if she wants.

But education is makeshift, and in a country invaded and a war that seems destined to remain a fruitless stalemate, even educated women have little scope. Besides, who can imagine a rosy, far-off future when tomorrow, and the next day, hunger will wrack your body and spirit the same way it does today?

As a form of escape, Haemi sneaks out at night to drink moonshine with Kyunghwan, a handsome, slightly older boy she’s known all her life. These risky outings, which she has to balance with her responsibilities for Hyunki’s care — the boy’s cough is alarming — provide another danger. Physically attracted to Kyunghwan, Haemi believes he shares her feelings and wants him to declare himself.

But he won’t, and when her mother pushes her to accept a marriage proposal from Jisoo, Kyunghwan’s cousin, because he has more money and better prospects, the girl agrees. The boys go off to war, and Haemi waits for her life to begin, though as a nurse’s assistant at a military hospital, she glimpses a path that she wishes she could follow.

An old story, a love triangle, and for at least the first half of If You Leave Me, Kim makes her narrative seem like a fresh take. It’s not just Haemi’s existence that’s precarious — it’s Korea’s — and the presence of the American “liberators” cuts in several directions. I like this part of the novel the best, in which Korean aspirations for freedom and prosperity, represented by the characters’ dreams, run up against poverty, desperation, and brutal circumstance. How these people carve out niches for themselves, or try to, makes compelling reading. Throughout, those who have money can skate through; those who don’t may well be beating their heads against a concrete wall.

Kim’s prose, sparse, carefully observed, and devoted to moment-to-moment gesture and feeling, fits the story like a glove.

Unfortunately, the novel loses momentum a few years after the war, when Haemi and Jisoo have children, while Kyunghwan has searched about for a successful career. Part of my impatience comes from how I see the characters, whose appeal wears thin after a while. Haemi, frustrated by her role as wife and mother, wants more and dreams of Kyunghwan, even though she knows it’s not a man she needs but a larger life. Her bitterness and mercurial moods upset everyone, and you want her to act. But this is midcentury Korea, so she’s trapped.

Jisoo, marked by his wartime experiences, can’t listen to her (or anyone else) and expects obedience. That’s an important cultural and political comment, and perhaps why Kim wrote her novel, but a theme isn’t a story, and I want to see other sides to him, to have this conflict go somewhere. As for Kyunghwan, he can’t befriend anyone for real, pleasant as he can be sometimes, so he too remains at a distance. Will he or won’t he visit his old friends? And if he does, what will happen? The answers are fairly predictable, yet still constrained by societal rules.

Finally, as the characters settle into their prescribed roles, the narrative presents a lot of back-and-forth, especially marital quarrels, that feels repetitive, both in action and theme. The almost constant argumentation seldom gets beyond “You’re selfish;” “No, you’re selfish.” That’s too bad, because the historical background, unfamiliar to me and probably to most Americans, furnishes an excellent atmosphere for what Kim wishes to say, and if she pushed the envelope a little, maybe the characters would have taken a leap.

If You Leave Me is her first novel. I hope the author’s future efforts develop her readily apparent gifts.… (altro)