"Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner

An audio book. An autobiography.

The narrator grew up in the US, spending 6 weeks a year in Seoul. Her US father was an ex-addict who was having affairs. She and her mother fought. When she was 18 her mother told her that she was such a difficult child that the mother subsequently had an abortion. Food was her mother's way of staying in touch with her homeland, Korea. The narrator scraped a film and creative writing degree, having had a sort of mental breakdown in her final year. She joined a band, sought role models, felt her life was going nowhere. When she was 25 her 54 y.o. mother was diagnosed with serious cancer, so she decided to return home and use food to reconnect with her mother, caring for her until "there was not embarrassment left". She arranges a marriage for 3 weeks ahead to an old friend, hoping it would keep her mother distracted. After her mother died she used food to deal with her grief. She saw others "searching for a piece of home" in Korean cafes. She wrote an article as therapy, wrote and recorded an album about her mother. She and her father holidayed in Vietnam hoping to bond. She found YouTube cooking videos about Korean food. She had a late honeymoon in Korea, and had trouble trying to talk to relatives about grief using the Korean of a 3 year-old. Back home she found a stash of her mother's photos in a fridge, photos of the narrator. She realised it's now "up to me to make sense of myself". She realised that fermentation isn't controlled death but a means of preservation that creates new flavours.

The essay won $5k and a New Yorker appearance. Her album took off. She went on tour, including a concert in Seoul.

Flashbacks are long. For me, there's too much about food. There are worthwhile phrases/observations scattered through the book

• someone who dances "like Mick Jagger at a square dance"
• A photo of her mother having had "her hair cut like Mia Farrow as if the hardest part was over"
• sorting out sets of PlayMobil as therapy
• "brainstorming names for my tennis balls"

but there's also "I thought to myself".

Other reviews

• Sarah Shin (Chongmi taught Zauner to “save 10 per cent, always, so there was something to fall back on”. When her mother dies, Zauner, “left alone to decipher the secrets of inheritance without its key”, examines the gaps left within her by that hidden fraction. Is 10% the degree of difference between Zauner, the consummate performer, off the page and the Zauner we meet in the book)
• Kristen Martin (Zauner plumbs the connections between food and identity. ... At a young age, Zauner realized that one way she could get her mother's approval was demonstrating an adventurous appetite)
• goodreads

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