This memoir had been on my radar for some time, but I just wasn’t sure if I had the emotional wherewithal to read a book about losing your mother to cancer. I had been thinking about it ever since I watched Michelle Zauner’s band, Japanese Breakfast, play on Saturday Night Live (sidebar: I looked it up to see when that performance occurred, and it was in 2022. WHAT EVEN IS TIME). However, when I had to do a very quick book shop to get something for the plane, I thought that maybe it was time. There has been a lot of loss this year, and sometimes it helps to see how other people shoulder that burden.
Zauner, a Korean American musician and writer, grew up in Oregon with a Korean immigrant mother and an American father. It was an. upbringing where her mother was entirely devoted to her, and they are entangled with each other throughout Zauner’s life. As she grows up, she both craves and rejects her mother’s approval and presence, and she moves far away for university and early adulthood. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer, Zauner begins to fall apart and immediately moves home and devotes herself to her mother’s care.
Like many people experience, you take your loved ones for granted; when they start to slip away, you desperately try to grasp on to what you can. Zauner’s relationship growing up with her mother is complicated – she craves her mother’s approval but can’t seem to get there and still be herself; she struggles with her cultural heritage and the desire to fit in while also seeking connection to her mother’s Korean history; she was a child without a sense of who her mother was as person besides their familial relationship. It’s hard to find you way forward together when the person you love most is almost overwhelming devoted to you while also often misunderstanding you. Family is complicated and your understanding of who you are in relation to your relatives evolves with time and experience.
I enjoyed this book very much. I could really identify with some of the ideas and experiences, and I liked the frankness and self-reflection that Zauner demonstrates throughout. I will note that Zauner writes really eloquently about food and connection and her book has led me to look into some more Korean recipes, which is another good byproduct of a great memoir.
Bingo Category: Family