Please Look after Mom

From Barnes & Noble

In this unforgettable novel, an elderly Korean farmwoman who has vanished is remembered from the disparate perspectives of four family members. In South Korea, Please Look after Mom sold a million copies in its original edition. A Discover Great New Writers selection now in trade paperback and NOOK Book.

— Sessalee Hensley

Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

“The universal resonance of family life lifts a novel rooted in the experience of Korean modernity to international success. A best-seller in her native South Korea, Shin’s Please Look After Mom tells the story of Park So-nyo, a devoted, do-all wife and mother who mysteriously goes missing. . . . Primarily composed of four sections narrated by Park, her eldest son, her husband, and one of their two daughters, the book—Shin’s first to be translated into English—is a moving portrayal of the surprising nature, sudden sacrifices, and secret reveries of motherhood. . . . As the novel progresses and Park’s whereabouts remain unclear, much that can be forgotten between mothers and children, husbands and wives, and among siblings resurfaces in the voices of this family desperate to locate the one person who was and always will be the center of their lives.”
—Lisa Shea, Elle

“Lovely . . . This heartbreaking yet joyous novel is Kyung-sook Shin’s first to appear in English. You could say it marks a first, loving gift to readers of English. Her publisher’s press release notes that the book ‘has sold more than 1.5 million copies in the author’s native South Korea.’ Understandably so. Please Look After Mom, especially its magical, transcendent ending, lifts the spirit as only the best writing can do.”
—Anthony Bukoski, Minneapolis Star-Tribune 
 
“We may know her favorite color, or flower, or meal. But how well do sons and daughters, even when grown, really understand what motivates their mothers?  Please Look After Mom is a suspenseful, haunting, achingly lovely novel about the hidden lives, wishes, struggles and dreams of those we think we know best. . . . Shin’s deft use of second person lends this story an instant intimacy. . . . There are few ways to describe this story that don’t involve the word ‘devastating.’ Seemingly small details explode into larger meaning at a pace that takes one’s breath away. The depth of each character’s guilt and regret over Mom’s absence—and what they wish they’d said and done differently—is palpable. The story deftly juxtaposes images of modern Korea with wartime Korea, of city living with country life, of ultra-processed ramen with the crumbly dust of freshly dug potatoes, of Mom lugging heavy jars of homemade pickles and elixirs on the train ride from her country house to nourish her children in the big city. As the family grapples with its newfound understanding of the woman they thought they knew, we’re given a window onto the culture and customs of Korea, its food, festivals, traditions and family dynamics. This book is not for those who crave easy resolution; just like family, it prompts worry, consternation, guilt, heartbreak, and tears. Shin’s style of writing makes it simple for readers to transpose their own families into such a scenario, and the onslaught of emotion that the narrative evokes is strangely cathartic. But, just like family, this novel also delivers ultimate gifts: moments of gorgeous lucidity, love that knows no depth, beauty in the details of many long-held memories.”
—Karen Gaudette, The Seattle Times 

“Intimate . . . Reflective meditations on motherhood and a ruminative quest to confront mysteries . . . ­[The novel’s] accumulating voices form a kind of instrumental suite, each segment joined by the same melody of family nostalgia, guilt and apology, and each ­occasionally plucking away at several larger motifs: country vs. city living, illiteracy vs. ­education, arranged mar­riages vs. modern dating, traditions vs. new freedoms. . . . [Please Look After Mom] will strike a chord with many readers, stimulating their own recollections or regrets. Truth be told, I called my mom well before the book’s final page, feeling the need to look after her a little myself.”
—Art Taylor, The Washington Post

“Haunting . . . Fervent . . . but also sinuous and elusive . . . Details, unembellished and unsentimental, are the individual cells that form this novel’s beating heart. . . . [Shin] re-create[s] a life through fragmented family recollections [and] leads the reader on a switchback journey to the past, historical and personal. . . . The novel’s language—so formal in its simplicity—bestows a grace and solemnity on childhood scenes . . . The rhythms of agrarian life and labor that Shin deftly conveys have a subtle, cumulative power. With each description, the relentless tide of the past erodes the yielding ground of the present to reveal the contours of one woman’s life. . . . Memory is the only guide and the least reliable one . . . Revelation arrives quietly, but truth remains the sole property of the lost.”
—Anna Mundow, Boston Sunday Globe 
 
“A great literary masterpiece [that] perfectly combines universal themes of love and loss, family dynamics, gender equality, tradition, and charity with rich Korean culture and values.”
—Lesley Stack, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“Titles to Pick Up Now: This best-seller set in the author’s native Korea examines a family’s history through the story of the matriarch, mysteriously gone missing from a Seoul train station.”
—Karen Holt, O, the Oprah Magazine

“[Please Look After Mom] can be read on several levels, as a metaphor for the impressions of the past as they linger in the present, as a story of mothers and children, husbands and wives. It describes one woman’s self-sacrifice so that the next generation may realize their dreams, instead of putting them to the side as she had to. . . . It reveals the emergence of a post-war metropolitan society in the twentieth century . . . A captivating story, written with an understanding of the shortcomings of traditional ways and modern life. It is nostalgic but unsentimental, brutally well observed and, in this flawlessly smooth translation, it offers a sobering account of a vanished past. It is the seventh novel by the much-praised Kyung-sook Shin and the first to be translated into English after a best-selling 1.5 million print run that changed the face of publishing in Korea in 2008. We must hope there will be more translations to follow.”
—Kelly Falconer, The Times Literary Supplement
 
“Kyung-sook Shin has crafted soul-touching moments out of the simplest of her characters’ gestures, and makes all of her characters sympathetic, genuine and unforgettable. Please Look After Mom is the perfect novel to remind us just how much a mother unites an entire family and how they are always a part of us even when they might be separated from us. No matter what the culture or what part of the world, the mother holds a sacred place in the life of every father, daughter and son.”
—Alison Reeger Cook, Gainesville Times 
 
“Quite apart from the universal sentiment it expresses so well, Please Look After Mom is intriguing for its X-ray insight into the mind and experience of an uneducated woman born to generations of subsistence farmers in a remote, mountainous region of the old Hermit Kingdom. It is a cultural leap that most modern readers could scarcely imagine, but it occurs with miraculous ease over the book’s 237 pages. . . . Shin uses the remorseful memories of the lost mother’s loved ones to personalize the cultural chasm that separates modern Koreans from their immediate, pre-industrial past.”
—John Barber, Globe and Mail (Canada)

“A deceptively simple book about a mother’s sudden disappearance. . . . Hauntingly intimate . . . Startling . . . Vivid . . . Please Look After Mom is filled with raw emotions, and characters that often display unlikeable and destructive behaviors. But there is such delicate awareness in Shin’s narration that each character, however faulty, remains entirely accessible. The author masterfully destabilizes the novel with the use of multiple viewpoints, and in some sections employs the second-person address to draw the reader in. In this way, she points to the ways in which we are all complicit in the small (and sometimes large) abuses of motherhood. Yet the mother in this novel is so tender . . . that Shin reminds us that motherhood is perhaps one of the most radical acts: the most selfless job in the world. Shin never borders on dogma. Instead, she allows her characters to speak to and through institutions and traditions that treat the mother figure as an unflawed ideal, and in doing so gives light to both the damaging and fulfilling aspects of motherhood. Shin renders a tender and beautiful portrait of South Korea, but the novel recognizes a familial dilemma experienced throughout the world.”
—Amanda Montei, Ms Magazine blog

“Please Look After Mom—a sensation in South Korea, where it sold a million copies—is the story of a family splintered by the loss of matriarch So-nyo, a farm wife who vanishes in a packed Seoul subway station. The novel unspools from the viewpoints of her eldest daughter, her eldest son (and favorite child), her abusive husband, and, finally, So-nyo herself. The picture that emerges, of an unappreciated mother who sacrificed her life for her family, [may be] familiar . . . but the story somehow works, redeemed by the resolute So-nyo of the last chapters, a woman her husband and children never knew.”
—Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly

“Rural South Korea is the principal setting for this portrait of a mom whose days are filled with work in the fields and kitchen. One day, in her waning years, she travels to Seoul with her husband to visit their children and goes missing. Their frantic search for her comprises the plot, in which Mom, Dad, son and daughter alternately describe how she lived, suffered and loved them. . . . The story is an arresting account of the misunderstandings that can cloud the beauty of the affection and memories that bind two very different generations. For American readers, it provides insight into how a mother from a Far Eastern country dodged the portents that she believed controlled her destiny. Shin, 47, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, writes a touching story that effectively weaves the rural, ages-old lifestyle of a mother into the modern urban lives of her children.”
—Kathleen Daley, Newark Star-Ledger
 
“An affecting account of a slow-burn family break-up. Events unfold from four perspectives, as the storytelling baton passes between the missing woman’s daughter, son and husband, until the heroine is finally allowed to take it up herself. The sense of release the reader feels when her voice at last rings out is a measure of the steady tension built up over this well-controlled and emotionally taut novel. . . . What distinguishes this novel is the way it questions whether our pasts, either public or private, are really available for us to recollect and treasure anyway. . . . It is in the moving final chapter when Mom finally speaks for herself that her face suddenly swims into radiantly clear focus.”
—Margaret Hillenbrand, Financial Times 
 
“A disoriented elderly woman is separated from her husband in a crowded Seoul subway station and disappears. Her grown children, distraught and guilt-ridden, scour the city for her, a search that awakens memories and ignites questions about who their mother really was beneath the surface of her life. This is the intriguing premise of Please Look After Mom, a huge bestseller in the writer’s native South Korea that is fast becoming an international sensation as well. It is easy to see the source of this global popularity, for not only is Shin’s absorbing novel written with considerable grace and suspense, but she also has managed to tap into a universality: the inequitable relationship between a mother and her children. As the story unfolds, told from four different perspectives, we learn far more about this woman than her children, or even husband, will ever know. And we bear witness to the lifetime’s worth of sacrifices she has made for all of them, at the expense of her own happiness and sense of self. . . . In a beautiful coda, the spirit of the woman herself reveals a rich emotional life she kept hidden with her customary self-effacement. In much of the book, Shin employs an unconventional second-person narrative, a choice that brilliantly heightens the self-recrimination the characters come to bear. Elegantly translated by Chi-Young Kim, the novel retains a strong Korean feel, filled with beguiling particulars of a culture alien to most Western readers. And yet, it speaks to us through its shared humanity, underscoring collective truths that transcend nationality.”
—Robert Weibezahl, BookPage 
 
“Indelible . . . In four distinct voices, the character of Mom—a rural farmwoman whose ‘hands could nurture any life’—is reassembled by her eldest daughter, whose books Mom couldn’t read; her eldest son, for whom she could never do enough; her husband, who never slowed down; and finally Mom herself as she wanders through memories both strange and familiar. Shin’s breathtaking novel is an acute reminder of how easily a family can fracture, how little we truly know one another, and how desperate need can sometimes overshadow even the deepest love. VERDICT: Already a prominent writer in Korea, Shin finally makes her English-language debut with what will appeal to all readers who appreciate compelling, page-turning prose. Stay tuned: Mom should be one of this year’s most-deserving bestsellers.”
—Terry Hong, Library Journal  

“A mother’s disappearance exposes family consciences, secrets and dependencies . . . An enormous publishing success in South Korea, this simple portrait of a family shocked into acknowledging the strength and heroic self-sacrifice of the woman at its center is both universal and socially specific. . . . The narration by four different family members exposes guilt and insights all around, from unmarried daughter Chi-hon, a novelist, to [the mother] herself. Partly a metaphor for Korea’s social shift from rural to urban, partly an elegy to the intensity of family bonds as constructed and maintained by self-denying women, this is tender writing.”
 
—Kirkus Reviews 
 
“Affecting . . . Poignant and psychologically revealing . . . Readers should find resonance in this family story, a runaway bestseller in Korea poised for a similar run here.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Here is a wonderful, original new voice, by turns plangent and piquant. Please Look After Mom takes us on a dual journey, to the unfamiliar corners of a foreign culture and into the shadowy recesses of the heart.  In spare, exquisite prose, Kyung-sook Shin penetrates the very essence of what it means to be a family, and a human being.”
 
—Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March

“Please Look After Mom is an authentic, moving story that brings to vivid life the deep family connections that lie at the core of Korean culture. But it also speaks beautifully to an urgent issue of our time: migration, and how the movement of people from small towns and villages to big cities can cause heartbreak and even tragedy. This is a tapestry of family life that will be read all over the world. I loved this book.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

“A suspenseful and moving book. We join this family as soon as we open these pages and we never quite leave it. Or it never leaves us. Cleverly structured and brimming with secrets and revelations, Please Look After Mom is a powerful and memorable read.”
—Edwidge Danticat, author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Brother, I’m Dying

“Kyung-sook Shin has managed some kind of alchemy in this novel. Weaving together four vivid voices—of daughter, son, husband, and mother, each with the immediacy of a whispered confession—she has created a heartbreaking family mystery. Here is a deeply felt journey into a culture foreign to many—yet with a theme that is universal in its appeal. A terrific novel that stayed with me long after I’d finished its final, haunting pages. This is a real discovery.”
—Abraham Verghese, bestselling author of Cutting for Stone
 
“A direct and affecting account of a modern Korean family’s tragedy that also provides an intimate window into the history and custom of the country.”
—Janice Y. K. Lee, bestselling author of The Piano Teacher
 

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

A mother's disappearance exposes family consciences, secrets and dependencies in the soft-spoken first English-language publication by a bestselling South Korean novelist.

An enormous publishing success in South Korea, this simple portrait of a family shocked into acknowledging the strength and heroic self-sacrifice of the woman at its center is both universal and socially specific. Park So-nyo, the illiterate mother who disappeared at Seoul Station subway, separated from her husband by the pressing crowd, has devoted her life to her marriage and children, applying herself to multiple rural occupations while encouraging all her offspring, but in particular son Hyong-chol, to fulfill his academic potential. The narration by four different family members exposes guilt and insights all around, from unmarried daughter Chi-hon, a novelist, to Park So-nyo herself.

Partly a metaphor for Korea's social shift from rural to urban, partly an elegy to the intensity of family bonds as constructed and maintained by self-denying women, this is subdued, tender writing with only rare lapses into sentimentality.

Mythili G. Rao

The Barnes & Noble Review

From Katherine A. Powers's "A Reading Life" column on The Barnes & Noble Review

Is Mom taking over the universe? From Sarah Palin to Cindy Sheehan, from Amy "Tiger Mother" Chua to Michelle "First Mom" Obama, everywhere you look: there's Mom, throwing her weight around and telling us off one minute, defending and nurturing us the next. Simply put, we are living in the Age of Mom, and it seems entirely possible that her huge presence and growing power are behind the appearance in this country of Kyung-sook Shin's Please Look After Mom, the first of this acclaimed South Korean writer's novels to appear in English.

Park So-nyo, 69-year-old mother of five, has gone missing. Arriving in Seoul from the countryside with her husband of over 50 years to visit their children, she has been accidentally left behind on a crowded subway platform. Her husband, as he had throughout their married life, simply assumed she was following him. Well, this is the last time anyone takes Mom for granted. Now begins a search, carried out by her children and husband, that becomes an emotional, remorse-filled exploration of the past and a chastening discovery of the Mom nobody knew.

Poor Mom. Born in 1936, she was married off against her wishes at a young age to save her from being carried off in one of the frequent raids made by renegade North Korean soldiers after the end of the Korean conflict. After their marriage, her husband disappeared for long periods, leaving Mom to give birth to and provide for their growing number of children. This she managed by ceaseless toil and scrimping, to which she added further labor and sacrifice in order to scrape together the money to educate at least some of the children. Her own illiteracy was one of her greatest sorrows: "I lived in darkness," she reflects, "with no light, my whole life."

Mom subsumed her needs, no matter how pressing, to those of everyone else, a self-sacrifice that was a matter of will power, obdurate humility, and singular intransigence. She would not see a doctor until forced to despite occasions of serious illness. Indeed, for the last few years before her disappearance, she had been wracked by debilitating headaches and was increasingly prey to bouts of confusion. Alone in the city, she cannot survive on her own.

Needless to say, her loss makes everyone feel guilty as hell. Her eldest son excoriates himself for failing to meet his parents at the Seoul Station; instead, he had been at a sauna sweating out the previous night's booze. A daughter, now a well-known writer, recalls with dismay that she had been flipping through the pages of one of her own novels at a book fair when her mother was abandoned on that chaotic platform. As for Mom's husband: his sins are beyond counting. The days and weeks pass, and possible Mom-sightings are reported. A dirty, seemingly addled woman resembling So-nyo is spotted in places where her children had once lived after leaving the country.

It must be said this novel comes very close to being just plain maudlin; still, it is saved by a couple of elements. For one thing, much of the story, which is told from several points of view including Mom's, is pursued in the second person. The tactic produces a sense of immediacy and urgency which delivers a fine accusatory punch: "You'd meet to discuss how to find Mom and one of you would unexpectedly dig up the different ways someone else had wronged her in the past. The things that had been suppressed, that had been carefully avoided moment by moment, became bloated, and finally you all yelled and smoked and banged out the door in a rage."

Further, the gathering weight of Mom's sorrows and her family's shame, remorse, and pity are counterbalanced by the novel's concrete detail and Shin's storytelling shrewdness. Bit by bit, episodes from the past emerge to provide glimpses of So-nyo's unknown and surprising private life, as well as a picture of the rigors of a material world that has disappeared as far as her children are concerned. Events take place on the cusp of Korea's economic development, when, through ceaseless labor and self-denial, a pre-industrial generation squeezed from itself every ounce of surplus to produce an affluent modern one.

Shin describes a peasant way of life -- of scarcity confronted by heroic toil and frugality -- wonderfully. Scene after richly detailed scene shows planting, harvesting, cooking, and preserving; the primitive dwellings and the formidable nature of distance. Mom's indefatigable provision for her children continues even when they've moved to attend school in the city, three of them living in one rented room. Her eldest son remembers her arriving laden with bundles:

The side dishes that came out of the newspapers and plastic and squash leaves were moved onto plates and into bowls from the cupboard, and Mom brushed off her hands, quickly peeled the covers off the blankets, and washed them. She made kimchi with the salted cabbage she had brought, and scrubbed the pot that had turned black from the coal fire, and cleaned the portable stove until it shone, and sewed the covers back on the blankets after they dried in the sun on the roof, and washed rice and made bean-paste soup and set the table for supper…. When he and his siblings took a spoonful of rice, Mom placed a piece of stewed beef on each person's spoon. They urged her to eat, but she insisted, "I'm not hungry."

The novel pretty much pulls out all the stops on Momidolatry, including a culminating scene with Michelangelo's Pietà. But it's more than that: it is also the story of one particular family with its own history spread out and picked over in absorbing detail.