First published 2001
Franklin Hata has built a quiet life in suburban New York, far from the battlefields of World War II. The aging Japanese man runs his medical supply business and tends his perfect garden, maintaining careful distance from his neighbors and his adopted daughter Sunny. But his orderly existence cannot contain the memories that surface unbidden. During the war, Hata served as a medic and encountered the Korean comfort women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. One woman in particular haunts him. As his relationship with Sunny deteriorates and his health fails, Hata must reckon with the choices he made decades ago. The weight of his silence and complicity threatens to destroy the carefully constructed American dream he has spent years perfecting. Lee examines how trauma echoes across generations and how the past refuses to stay buried.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: past-haunts-present, unreliable-narrator
Setting: New York, Korea
Period: World War II
356 pages · Paperback · Granta Books
Content warnings: sexual-assault, war