BOOK REVIEW: Pachinko, A Korean Family Epic

Author Min Jin Lee follows a Korean family through years of hardship, interweaving true history to create an emotional and fascinating novel.

Pachinko, a bestselling book by Min Jin Lee, follows a Korean family through three generations and several countries. The 479-page saga begins with the teenage girl Sunja, who must leave behind her family in Korea to move to Japan. Sunja has gotten pregnant outside of marriage, and is presented with the option of marrying and moving to japan with a man who is not the father of her child. While this decision is heartbreaking for Sunja, as she must abandon everything she’s ever known, her other options are worse. Upon Sunja’s arrival in Japan, the novel focuses heavily on Sunja’s experience as a Korean woman living in Japan. 

Additionally, the absent but wealthy and influential father of Sunja’s child looms large in the background of the story throughout the novel. The story transitions from Sunja’s experiences to those of her children and grandchildren while always staying focused on the major themes of familial relationships and Korean identity. By the novel’s end, Sunja is an older woman, and the reader will have followed her life as well as her children’s and grandchildren’s.

The incredible thing about Pachinko is how beautifully developed the characters are. It is a book that will bring you to tears multiple times as you genuinely feel like you know the members of this family. At the same time, it emphasizes crucial historical events through fiction—major, global historical events which affected millions—which are unfortunately rarely taught in American schools. Fiction can be an extremely effective mode for portraying the human experience compassionately, and Pachinko is undoubtedly an excellent example of that. Pachinko is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read and one that I would definitely recommend. It is an entirely immersive experience: a book nearly impossible to put down, as you feel like you are traveling with this family across space and time, through tragedies and exultations. 

The TV adaptation of Pachinko premiered on Apple TV+ in March of 2022 and is available to stream there. The first season had eight episodes, and the show has already been renewed for a second season. While the novel unfolds in chronological order, the first season of the TV show shifts from Sunja’s perspective as a young woman to her grandson’s narrative as a young man, leaving the viewer wondering what has transpired in the many years between—questions that will undoubtedly be answered as the show progresses. Despite the differing structures, the show’s first season stays mainly true to the plot and events in the novel. The differences between the novel and the show make them both worth the read and watch, respectively, without the show straying too far from the author’s vision. 

As noted, the true strength of Pachinko as a story is its characters. Throughout the book each character continues to surprise you while also staying true to the personalities that have been built. Min Jin Lee manages to keep the reader engaged and invested through three generations; while there are too many characters to count, they are all people the reader will care about. By building a narrative around a family—spanning about 70 years—the reader will truly feel a part of the story. It is immersive and emotionally compelling, never failing to be both heartbreaking and heartwarming simultaneously. The many threads created throughout come together in the end in a way that makes sense, and despite the enormity of the story, it never feels like the author has taken on too much. The book is complex and extraordinary, yet it still feels plausible and honest.

Calliana Leff

Calliana is currently an undergraduate student at Boston University majoring in English and minoring in psychology. She is passionate about sustainability and traveling in an ethical and respectful way. She hopes to continue her writing career and see more of the world after she graduates. 

BOOK REVIEW: Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

With abundant soul and piercing intellect, Jeremy Atherton Lin writes a loving elegy for the bars and clubs that continue to shape who he is today.

You step inside the bar feeling some mixture of trepidation and glee. Through the fog machine mist, a drag queen (or two, or three, or a dozen) tears through a Sylvester number that has the sweaty, dancing throng of twinks, daddies, bears, cruisers, pill-poppers, club kids and assorted deviants jumping so that the floors tremble with their weight. You order a drink, then another, and since the bartenders pour heavy, you’re already feeling some type of wonderful. Everyone at the bar is shouting over the music at their dates, or eyeing handsome strangers, if they haven’t already escaped to the dark, dank corners of the club to perform acts unmentionable in polite society. But this is no polite book. “Gay Bar: Why We Went Out” by Jeremy Atherton Lin seizes you be the hand and leads you to the dance floor. That feeling? Gay euphoria. Or someone just slipped some poppers into the fog machine. 

“It’s starting to smell like penis in here. . .” the book begins, and you can imagine where it goes from there. The book veers through categories of nonfiction one would think incompatible: cultural critique within pornography, personal memoir beside centuries-old queer history, gay clubbing tales after meditations on longing and identity (namely, longing for identity, or an identity of longing). “We go out to be gay”, Atherton Lin declares. He spends the book figuring out what that entails. Between his vibrant voice, daring diction and raunchy reminiscences, Jeremy Atherton Lin simply can’t not be interesting. 

Nowadays, you’re less likely to find the kinds of bars that were so formative to Atherton Lin’s queer coming-of-age. In an era of safe spaces and trigger warnings, he reflects, “ to be violated was my expectation back when I [first] ventured in”. Not that the new rules are unwelcome. “Gay Bar” bears witness to more than it judges the ebb and flow of queerness over the course of the author’s life. Historically speaking, his life passes through the end of the AIDS crisis, surges in homophobic violence and the gentrification of queer spaces. “The misogynistic old trope,” he writes, referencing the “fag hag” stereotype, “of a lonely heart attached to sexual criminals out of compatible ostracization had been replaced by one of basic bitches latching on because the gays turned out to be the winners”. What they won, however, is unclear.

“Gay is an identity of longing , and there is a wistfulness to beholding it in the form of a building,” Atherton Lin muses on gay bars. The dichotomy between the terms queer and gay acts as a schism between two generations of gay men, those two generations being Lin’s own and the kids who came after. Queer is “somehow both theoretically radical and appropriate in polite company”. Gay, however, is “like a joke or an elegy”. Indeed, “Gay Bar” reads like an elegy for the club scenes that seemed to be dying even at their pinnacles. Atherton Lin experiences gay clubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco and London, and though he often passes off personal experience as canonical gay history, his experience makes one fact undeniably clear: gay bars aren’t what they used to be. 

At the same time, often in the same breath, Atherton Lin recognizes that “gay bars are actually transitioning–in that they’ve likely been something else, and will change again in the future”, but precious few are the historical records of these gay institutions. “Still now,” he writes, “when people say of East London It’s not like what it used to be. . . , I think: One could never really know what that means”. Very rarely do younger gay men seek out their own history either. As a self-proclaimed “daddy” conversing with younger twinks and twunks, Atherton Lin writes, “[t]hese boys don’t need my wisdom. Camaraderie, perhaps; it’s not guidance they’re after”. What’s left in the historical vacuum is rumor, hearsay, propaganda and a fair share of badmouthing. Certainly, the sins of gay bars are numerous–femmephobia, racist door policies and inappropriate groping. But “Gay Bar” asks the question: does rebellion against these institutions for their wrongs mortally endanger the communal memory on which the queer community is based?

Sadly, “Gay Bar” doesn’t answer this question, or many others. Nonfiction, once the venue for resolving inner turmoil and nagging questions, has become a genre for simply venting these confusions. Of course, a personal memoir needn’t answer to anybody or anything, but when Atherton Lin cites queer theorists like Judith Butler or Michael Warner, one gets the impression that he is using their erudition to suggest an argument he doesn’t want to run the risk of making. In true camp fashion, he ends most lines of argument with a witty quip, rather than a resolution to the passage’s central problem. For other writers, this would sunder the book, but since galavanting in camp fashion seems to be his primary goal, Atherton Lin still succeeds in winning the reader over, if through his electric prose and not his sound argumentation. 

Still, like any gay bar, it’s hard not to love “Gay Bar”. Its endlessly interesting anecdotes, hilarious jokes and piercing reflections make for a polyphonic book that defies categorization. It is so much like the queer spaces that it describes: intersectional, cross-pollinating, intoxicating and above all fun. With countless bars–and many gay ones–closing under the stress of the COVID economy, Lin’s book provides the perfect elixir for cabin fever. When reading “Gay Bar”, you’ll often feel like you’re in one.

Michael McCarthy

Michael’s fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in The Adroit Journal, Barzakh Magazine, Beyond Queer Words, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Currently, he is transferring from Haverford College to University of Carlos III in Madrid, Spain, where he intends to major in the Humanities. He is also seeking publication for his poetry chapbook Steve: An Unexpected Gift, written in memory of his late uncle. He can be reached at @michaelmccarthy8026.

10 Must Read Novels About the Immigrant Experience

Here are 10 fictional narratives detailing aspects of the immigrant experience from the hilarious to the heart-wrenching and everything in between.

Bookshelves. Hannah Gersen. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Travel has been a popular topic among authors for almost as long as writing has existed. From the heroic tales of Odysseus’ journey first published in Homer’s 7th century BC epic, to the many articles highlighting hidden wonders on this very website, the idea of reading about far away places and getting lost in descriptions of exotic foreignness has always drawn a huge following. The subsection of this genre that focuses on migrant experiences, however, adds a completely unique flavor to these stories of new discovery. Here are 10 books that highlight, among others, themes of cultural assimilation, hardships encountered in completely foreign settings and the balance between wanting a better life and loyalty to one's country.

1. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020)

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. Waterstones. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

After her critically acclaimed debut novel Homegoing, Ghanian-American novelist Yaa Gyasi has finally gifted her readers another emotional rollercoaster in “Transcendent Kingdom”. Her protagonist, Gifty, a whip smart first generation neuroscience candidate at Stanford, finds herself struggling to accommodate her Ghanian mother’s pervasive religious beliefs alongside her scientific research. Maybe more importantly, Gifty is also struggling to find herself, her place in society, her true calling in life and love. “Transcendent Kingdom” is raw, honest and unsparing in its examination of one woman’s journey to self-acceptance.

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades. Goodreads. CC BY 2.0.

This debut novel from Queens local Daphne Palasi Andreades is a beautifully lyrical homage to young women of color making their way through the complexities of teenage life in the New York borough. The book follows “girls like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique” among others as they face the realities of reconciling their American dreams with histories and cultures rooted in the faraway homelands of their parents. Andreades masterfully balances the day to day of life in Queens while tackling the issues of race, class, identity and cultural marginalization dealt with by brown girls everywhere.

 

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Amazon. CC BY-NC 2.0.

 

Charles Yu is back with another satirically analogous novel, this time tastefully playing back and forth between Asian-American stereotypes and Hollywood clichés to narrate, literally, the far reaching aspirations of “Generic Asian Man” Willis Wu. Willis feels so much an unremarkable member of Chinatown’s exotic foreign aesthetic, that he can’t even see himself as the main character in his own life. His dreams, on the other hand, have him playing “Kung Fu Guy”, a role achieved only by those lucky enough to claw their way out of Chinatown’s grasp, but one that will force Willis to confront his family’s heritage in the context of a hostile America.

Good Intentions by Kasim Ali. Waterstones. CC BY 2.0.

Romance novel fans look no further -- Kasim Ali’s debut novel “Good Intentions” follows the love story between Yasmina and Nur from reckless college parties to the uncertainties of post-graduation adulthood. Both first generation immigrants from Sudan and Pakistan respectively, Yasmina and Nur are navigating the balance between traditional Muslim values and their feelings for each other. While Yasmina, passionate and headstrong, seems to have everything figured out, Nur can’t bring himself to tell his parents about his relationship, even four years in. Comforting and heartbreaking all at the same time, the romance novel is the ultimate homage to young love in vibrant color.

The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota. Blackwell’s. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

This award-winning novel is Indian-British author Sunjeev Sahota’s second publication, telling the sweeping narrative of four young Indians facing the punishing realities of building a new life in foreign surroundings. Avtar, Randeep, Tochi and Narinder want nothing more than to leave their pasts in the rural Indian villages which they fought so hard to escape, but they have no idea how much hardship still awaits them. Stretching from the most remote corners of Eastern India to the crumbling housing complexes in Sheffield, Sahota shares a story of dreams and ambition, of the ever-pervasive sufferings of generational poverty and inequality and of the sheer strength of the immigrant spirit in the face of seemingly insurmountable difficulty.

 

Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So. Goodreads. CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

A love letter to Khmer teenagers, monks, donut shop owners, badminton players and everyone else in the Cambodian enclave of Stockton, California, Anthony Veasna So’s collection of short stories paint a darkly humorous picture of his community. Each vignette holds up a microscope to a crucial turning point in a young Khmer life, some of which lead their protagonists to long-awaited clarity and relief while others are simply plagued by more questions and emotional instability. So is unrelenting in his study of the good, the bad and the ugly of what it means to be “Cambo” -- what it means to carry the searingly fresh wounds of recent history while chasing success in 21st century America.

 

Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta. Goodreads. CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

Toronto-based author Zalika Reid-Benta’s debut short story collection follows the conflicted Kara Davis who constantly feels as though she is falling between the cracks of her Jamaican ancestry and her Canadian nationality. A coming of age story set against the rich backdrop of Toronto’s Little Jamaica neighborhood, “Frying Plantain” perfectly captures the power of a single moment to completely alter a relationship, an intention and even an entire life. Familial relationships are tested and generations clash over what it means to be a “true Jamaican” while embracing new opportunities, all while being wrapped up in ever-present tensions of being black in a predominantly white country.

 

Mama Tandoori by Ernest van der Kwast. Amazon. CC BY-NC 2.0.

 

Marked by its huge cast of unforgettable characters, “Mama Tandoori” is the heart-warming story of author Ernest van der Kwast’s childhood under the watchful eyes of his austere Dutch father and big-hearted Indian mother. With hilarity around every corner, van der Kwast introduces his heptathlete aunt and Bollywood star uncle amongst a colorful lineup of relatives, each adding spices of their own to the recipe of his youth. It is his mother, however, the talented bargainer and ever tenacious Veena van der Kwast, who lies at the center of this novel and breathes life into this moving portrait of familial love.

 

Island by Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen. Pushkin Press. CC BY 2.0.

 

Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen’s critically acclaimed debut novel approaches the immigrant story from an exhilaratingly new perspective. Island follows a young woman completely removed from her ancestral heritage in the Faroe Islands despite having called it home her whole life. When she is called back by family, she journeys to the rocky shores of the northern archipelago to discover stories about her ancestors that will change the way she sees herself forever. An incredible tale of perseverance and cultural discovery, “Island” explores the complex definition of “home” to those who have more than one.

 

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan. Biblio. CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

This final one is an oldie but a goodie -- Chinese American author Amy Tan is most well-known for her novel “The Joy Luck Club”, and this novel follows proudly in its footsteps, touching on similar aspects of the Chinese-American immigrant experience, while introducing a refreshing dose of Chinese mysticism and ghostly folklore for good measure. The Hundred Secret Senses follows half-sisters Olivia and Kwan, the former desperately trying to find her place at the intersection of her mixed heritage, and the latter perfectly content in her ability to communicate with the departed souls of those she knew in past lives. Tan weaves a heart-wrenching narrative of love and loss that carries readers from the sunny shores of San Francisco to the bloody terrors of Manchu China, honoring the bonds of familial loyalty and the ties of tradition the whole way through.

Tanaya Vohra

Tanaya is an undergraduate student pursuing a major in Public Health at the University of Chicago. She's lived in Asia, Europe and North America and wants to share her love of travel and exploring new cultures through her writing.