Review by New York Times Review
"PLEASE Look After Mom," by the South Korean writer Kyung-sook J. Shin, opens with a family in disarray. Mom is missing, separated from Father by the closing doors of a subway car in a busy train station in Seoul. A day, a week, then nearly a month goes by. Mom's husband and adult children are not only worried, but crippled with guilt and regret, fumbling "in confusion, as if they had all injured a part of their brains." Are you punishing me? each privately wonders. The eldest daughter, Chi-hon, is the writer of her family, and she is persuaded to draft the missing-person fliers. "Appearance: Short, salt-and-pepper permed hair, prominent cheekbones," she writes, "last seen wearing a sky-blue shirt, a white jacket and a beige pleated skirt." When Chi-hon thinks back on the Mom of her childhood, she sees a woman who "strode through the sea of people in a way that would intimidate even the authoritative buildings looking on from above." The strangers who respond to her ads paint a different picture: "They saw an old woman walking very slowly, sometimes sitting ... or standing vacantly." Could it be the same woman? Shin's novel, her first to be translated into English, embraces multiplicity. It is told from the perspectives of four members of the family, and from their memories emerges a portrait of a heroically selfless and industrious woman. She runs their rural home "like a factory." She sews and knits and tills the fields, and raises puppies, piglets, ducklings and chickens. The family is poor, but she sees to it that her children's bellies are filled, their tuition fees paid. Only after her children grow up and leave their home in Chongup does Mom's strength and purposefulness begin to flag. When Chi-hon visits unannounced, she finds the house in shambles and Mom suffering private anguish. The daughter is stunned: "Mom got headaches? So severe that she couldn't even cry?" These are some of the many questions that punctuate her narrative and lead to a cascade of revelations. Mom's debilitating headaches are the byproduct of a stroke she told no one about. Other discoveries come gradually. After one of Chi-hon's older brothers leaves the village for Seoul, she is responsible for writing letters to him, dictated by Mom. For years, Chi-hon assumes this is just an additional chore. The reality is revealed in another question she asks of herself: "When was it you realized that Mom didn't know how to read?" Shin's prose, intimate and hauntingly spare in this translation by Chi-Young Kim, moves from first to second and third person, and powerfully conveys grief's bewildering immediacy. Chi-hon's voice is the novel's most distinct, but Father's is the most devastating. Returning to the house in Chongup, he is "bludgeoned" with Mom's absence as he realizes that he never fully appreciated her, this "steadfast tree" at the center of his life - and that all this time he had been in denial over her health's deterioration. "The word 'Mom' is familiar," Chi-hon observes, "and it hides a plea: Please look after me." Passages of the novel may cause the grown children among Shin's readers to cringe. ("You were the one who always hung up first," Chi-hon mournfully remembers of her own behavior. "You would say, 'Mom, I'll call you back,' and then you didn't.") And yet this book isn't as interested in emotional manipulation as it is in the invisible chasms that open up between people who know one another best. Who is the missing woman? In this raw tribute to the mysteries of motherhood, only Mom knows. Mythili G. Rao has written for The New York Observer, Words Without Borders and Boston Review.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 27, 2011]
Review by Booklist Review
This novel from widely acclaimed Korean author Shin focuses on motherhood and family guilt. Park So-nyo, mother of four now-adult children, has gone missing in a Seoul train station on the way to visit them. The novel is told in four parts, from the perspectives of, first, her daughter, and then, her firstborn son, her husband, and finally, So-nyo herself. Composed almost entirely in second-person narration, the writing is sharp, biting, and intensely moving. So-nyo's children continually battle with their own guilt for not taking better care of her while reminiscing about the times when they were young, growing up in incredible poverty in the countryside. The children come to terms with their mother's absence in their own ways, and their father repents for a lifetime of neglect. When So-nyo's voice enters the narrative, the portrait of a troubled but loving family is complete. Secrets are revealed, and the heart of a mother is beautifully exposed. This Korean million-plus-copy best-seller is an impressive exploration of family love, poverty, and triumphing over hardship.--Hunt, Julie Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Shin's affecting English-language debut centers on the life of a hardworking, uncomplaining woman who goes missing in a bustling Seoul subway station. After Park So-nyo's disappearance, her grown children and her husband are filled with guilt and remorse at having taken So-nyo for granted and reflect, in a round-robin of narration, on her life and role in their lives. Having, through Mom's unstinting dedication, achieved professional success, her children understand for the first time the hardships she endured. Her irresponsible and harshly critical husband, meanwhile, finally acknowledges the depth of his love and the seriousness of her sacrifices for him. Narrating in her own voice late in the book, the spirit of Mom watches her family and finally voices her lifelong loneliness and depression and recalls the one secret in her life. As memories accrue, the narrative becomes increasingly poignant and psychologically revealing of all the characters, and though it does sometimes go soggy with pathos, most readers should find resonance in this family story, a runaway bestseller in Korea poised for a similar run here. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The Korean title of this indelible novel, Omma rul put¿ak hae, contains a sense of commanding trust that is missing in its English translation: "I entrust Mommy [to you]." That trust is irreparably splintered when Mom disappears after becoming separated from her rushing husband on a busy Seoul Station platform. 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 best sellers. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/10.]-Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
