Genre: Nonfiction
Length: 256 pages
Audiobook Length: 7 hours and 23 minutes
First Published: 2021
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Rachael’s Review
A powerful memoir about growing up a Korean American from the indie singer known for her Japanese Breakfast project. Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, Michelle Zauner struggled to fit in as the only Asian-American student in high school, burdened by the high expectations of her mother. Moving East, she began working in the restaurant industry and joined a fledgling band. But not until her mother’s terminal cancer diagnosis did Zauner feel like she discovered her identity and understand her Koreanness.
Zauner’s bestselling memoir highlights the ups and downs of her relationship with her mother – from childhood admiration to teenage friction and adult friendship. Zauner describes the challenges of being of mixed race, feeling like you don’t fully belong in either culture. Sprinkled throughout with lush descriptions of the Korean food that connected her to her mother and her heritage, Crying in H Mart is a heartbreaking account of the enveloping pain of losing your mother to cancer.
Publisher’s Description
From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.
About Michelle Zauner
Michelle Zauner is a singer and guitarist known for inde pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She is also the author of the memoir Crying in H Mart.
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