fiction - a homeless Black veteran is found dead in the back yard of a Korean-American family whose wife/mother disappeared almost one year before in Los Angeles (1977-1999).

I really liked this one, with its varied characters each with their own battles and a surprisingly satisfying ending. There were a lot of parallels to The Last Story of Mina Lee (loss of a mother and so many secrets about her life left behind, with the perspective of a Korean-American immigrant being divided between family left behind in the war and its aftermath and conflicting feelings about staying in the US), but this latest added the potential of solidarity with Black Lives (even while overshadowed by the riots following the Rodney King verdict) and made for a very compelling story. The librarian bits are maybe not 100% accurate, as I'm fairly sure there would have been more privacy protections even in those days, but I'm more than willing to overlook in service to a good story. ( )

Mystery and family drama story.

Sunny and John Kim left Korea for America where their two children, Ann, and Ronald, were born. One day, Sunny unexpectedly disappeared. Her body was never found. A year after that incident, a dead man was found in Kim's backyard carrying a letter addressed to Sunny. His name was Ronald Jones. The same name as their son's. A few days later, Ronald's daughter, Rhonda, came to look for answers of her father's death. Ronald Jones was a war veteran, then he worked at the police station as a janitor, but later ended up homeless. The investigation revealed secrets and mystery behind both incidents.

The story is told in two timelines. The first timeline was told in perspective of Sunny and her struggles to live as an immigrant in America. She missed her family and couldn't find happiness in a new place. Until one day when she met Ronald. In this section, author nicely presented daily life of the immigrants in a new country and the beginning of marital problems.

The second timeline started when Ronald's body was found in the yard. It covered the investigation of Ronald's death and tied it to Sunny's disappearance. I didn't expect this book to be a mystery and I'm glad that author included chilling actions into this story.

This is the story of survival in a foreign country. It's a story of a family who lost their bond due to secrets and lack of communication. It was an interesting story that most readers will enjoy. ( )

What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a recommended domestic drama about a family searching for answers about the disappearance of their mother.
In 1999 the Kim family, father John (61), and grown children Anastasia (Ana) and Ronald, are still struggling after their wife/mother (Sunny/Sunhee) vanished the previous year. When John finds a body in their backyard with a letter addressed to Sunny they are questioning her connection to the strange man.
In 1977 Sunny is married, pregnant, and moved to Los Angeles from Korea with her husband. Sunny has had a hard time adjusting and John is often gone, so she welcomed an unexpected connection at the bus stop with a good Samaritan. The two form a relationship and unknown to John, their son is named after him.

While the plot may pull readers in at the start, the writing is not as smooth and polished as one would expect. The mystery is compelling and will hook readers in, so it would have behooved Kim to concentrate on it. The twists will keep our attention and we will want to know what happens next, so keep the action moving. In spite of the potential, this is a very slow moving novel that can be repetitive, unwieldy, and dogmatic. Yet again I need to caution an author to keep their personal political/social views to themselves as it diminishes a novel. Show us in the plot and dialogue, don't repeatedly tell and lecture us.

As an uneven novel, this is recommended because of the potential and character development, but it could have been so much more.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria via Edelweiss.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/10/what-we-kept-to-ourselves.html ( )

What We Kept to Ourselves is an ambitious novel. It’s a family drama rife with secrets, the story of Korean immigrants who bear the scars of trauma and war, a mystery thriller with a twist. A woman trapped in a traditional role and loveless marriage longs for a life in art. A Vietnam vet of color brings in racism and guilt and PTSD of another kind. And, there is a lesbian love affair.

It is also a story told in two timelines, with plenty of flashbacks to the character’s earlier lives.

And, frankly, I was frustrated, wishing the book had been more tightly edited, some of the themes cut out for another novel. The basic story of a missing mother and her secret, platonic relationship with a man who had witnessed and documented a crime, and turns up dead in her home’s yard a year after she disappears, has all the elements of a good thriller.

No one could afford to listen to their heart. Its beating and its blood would never write a check, pay the bills, keep the lights on at night.
from What We Kept To Ourselves

The Kim family parents, survivors of the Korean War, feel trapped by their roles of breadwinner and homemaker which they believe is necessary to support their American children. But it only causes a chasm between and their children. Although they were in love in their early marriage, the couple became distant, unable to share their needs and concerns with each other. It leads them to make emotional decisions that become disastrous.

The immigrant experience is particularly central to the novel, and perhaps the most interesting aspect of the characters’ personalities.

The father, John Kim, embraces American ideas and foods, even conservative politics, especially the ideals of hard work paying off and a wife’s place is in the home. He had come to America as a poet, to study English lit, but dropped out to work in a gas station. His entire career is as a manual laborer. It makes him hard and distant. He was a child during the Korean War, experiencing suffering

Sunny Kim thought she was marrying a handsome poet/student, and found herself living in a small apartment with a manual laborer. She gives up her painting to scrub floors and care for the children, trapped in the house. When a stranger helps her and shows her care, she imagines she is in love with him. She returns to where they met, forging a friendship that, when discovered, results in tragedy.

The children, college student Ana and high school son Ronald, become involved in trying to solve the mystery of the man found dead in their yard.

The book becomes a page-turner as it reaches the climatic moment, but the resolution felt too comfortable.

Many readers will enjoy this novel for its strengths.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. ( )

This well written, lyrical novel looks at a Korean family and their lives in America. It's told in two time
lines. In 1977, we learn about the new marriage of Sunny and John, their acclimation to American life and the birth of their children. In the 1999 time line, we learn how the family is coping with the loss of their mother who just disappeared one day.

1977 - Sunny has just moved from Korea. She misses her family and friends and the only person she knows is her husband who is often emotionally closed off and distant. America is not what she always dreamed it would be. She meets a new friend at a bus stop and the friendship spans the decades of the family's life.

1999- Sunny has been gone for one year. Her daughter, who just graduated from college, lives away from the family and since her mother disappeared, has been unable to find any stability in her life, Her brother is in high school and he lives with his father. Neither child has much love or respect for their father who has not been emotionally involved with them for their entire lives. They also know that he must, somehow, have something to do with the disappearance of their mother. When a dead body is found in their yard with a letter addressed to Sunny, they all wonder what the connection is to their mother and begin to investigate his life hoping to find a clue about their mother's disappearance.

This book looks at the immigrant experience in America. There was a lot of interesting information about Korean food as the mother and then the children cooked the traditional dishes. The family was quite intriguing - my favorite character was actually John. Yes, he didn't share his emotions and yes, he didn't involve his wife in his decision making but he worked hard and tried to make a good life for his family and he kept his bad memories about the Korean war to himself. I had a hard time with the way he was treated by the rest of the family when he was the person who kept them financially ok.

This is the story of a family acclimating to a new environment, there is love between the siblings, a mystery - where was Sonny?, and a look at a family struggling with her loss. It was a slow moving story but well worth reading just to learn more about Korean culture. ( )