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A Booklist Top 10 First Novels of 2012 pick
A Bookpage Best Books of 2012 pick
On the night Janie waits for her sister, Hannah, to be born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, so Janie is charged with keeping Hannah safe. As time passes, Janie hears more stories, while facts remain unspoken. Her father tells tales about numbers, and in his stories everything works out. In her mother's stories, deer explode in fields, frogs bury their loved ones in the ocean, and girls jump from cliffs and fall like flowers into the sea. Within all these stories are warnings.
Years later, when Hannah inexplicably cuts all ties and disappears, Janie embarks on a mission to find her sister and finally uncover the truth beneath her family's silence. To do so, she must confront their history, the reason for her parents' sudden move to America twenty years earlier, and ultimately her conflicted feelings toward her sister and her own role in the betrayal behind their estrangement.
Weaving Korean folklore within a modern narrative of immigration and identity, Forgotten Country is a fierce exploration of the inevitability of loss, the conflict between obligation and freedom, and a family struggling to find its way out of silence and back to one another.
Twenty years ago Janie and Hannah moved with their parents to Michigan to avoid reprisals by South Korea's then-authoritarian government against their brilliant mathematician father's incendiary political pamphlet. Janie, now a graduate student in mathematics in Chicago, has always grudgingly accepted the way her family considers it her responsibility as older sister to protect more openly rebellious Hannah. When Hannah drops out of college and takes off for California, cutting off communication with her traditionally tight knit family, Janie is furious. Then her father is diagnosed with a form of cancer best treated, ironically, in Korea. Dispatching Janie to find Hannah and break the news, her parents return to Korea. Janie finds Hannah thriving in Los Angeles. During a quarrel, Janie claims their parents are done with Hannah and tells her not to come to Korea. To Janie's surprise, Hannah acquiesces and stays behind. Janie arrives in Korea alone, claiming Hannah couldn't get away. Ensconced with her parents in a lovely Korean home and visited by devoted (if sometimes rancorous) family and friends, Janie develops a deeper appreciation for her parents' history, particularly her father's. His health seems to improve, and she luxuriates in his approval and her role as the good daughter. But when his condition suddenly worsens, Janie's mother calls Hannah herself. Hannah comes immediately, and, to Janie's chagrin, the family embraces her as if she never deserted it. As their father's health deteriorates, Janie and Hannah's sibling rivalry comes to a head, but their bond is stronger than either has recognized. Despite some missteps into clichés about abuse, Chung delves with aching honesty and beauty into large, difficult questions—the strength and limits of family, the definition of home, the boundaries (or lack thereof) between duty and love—within the context of a Korean experience.
Chung's limpid prose matches her emotional intelligence.
Anonymous
Posted March 23, 2012
This book was riveting and beautifully written. I am so glad I read it :)
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.impulse04
Posted March 18, 2012
I really liked this book. Folk tales, mathematics, and interesting characters all work together to produce a fascinating family story. It is some of the best stuff I’ve read in a long time.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 8, 2012
The book flowed nicely, however many of the characters could have gone deeper. I felt that just as soon as we were discovering the character the story was cut off. It seemed a bit contrived at times.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted June 19, 2012
Worth reading.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted June 7, 2012
Amxing writing! Emotional and very well written! You can really hear her voice.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.ProfessorLala
Posted May 24, 2012
Forgotten Country, is a novel that holds many stories. It is the story of two sisters who struggle to define themselves in relationship to each other, their family, and the cultures they’ve inherited and have grown up in. It’s the story of a family straddling two countries, languages, cultures, histories—of how they navigate what to hold on to, what to reach for, and what to let go. It is the story of two countries—America and Korea—with their separate and linked histories of violence, separation and reformation. But largest and most ambitious in this novel, is the story of all of us. It is the story of our flawed human selves, our vast human longings, our capacity for love, cruelty, error and redemption. “Each life contains as much meaning as all of history,” Chung writes in Forgotten Country. And as the stories swirl, slamming against and into each other, we’re pulled between the historical and the individual; we engage in the epic human quest of finding a place to belong and to call our own.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Acaps
Posted May 24, 2012
A magnificent book by a major writing talent. The characters are rich and enveloping and the story is gorgeous.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Ciara171
Posted May 24, 2012
Forgotten Country is stunning and poignant, gripping and beautiful. Every page is a gem, every chapter a treasure. Catherine Chung brilliantly and delicately holds the reader in the palm of her hand and delivers him or her to a place that looks so much like this one, but is in every way different.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 25, 2012
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Anonymous
Posted April 16, 2012
Beautifully written. The spare, poignant prose touched my heart, The characters are well-drawn and the plot well defined. The author intertwines myth and magic into a very touching family dynamic. .
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.IslandPrincessz
Posted April 14, 2012
Kept waiting for something to happen.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 1, 2013
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Posted May 14, 2012
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Posted March 16, 2012
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Posted March 27, 2012
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Overview
A Booklist Top 10 First Novels of 2012 pick
A Bookpage Best Books of 2012 pick
On the night Janie waits for her sister, Hannah, to be born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, so Janie is charged with keeping Hannah safe. As time passes, Janie hears more stories, while facts remain unspoken. Her father tells tales ...