nwasianweekly.com
Oct. 28, 2006

Secondhand World, by gifted writer Katherine Min, is the story of Isadora Myung Hee Sohn, a rather plain, bookish Korean American girl with some serious teenage angst issues. Isa talks back to her traditional parents, smokes pot, messes around with her best friend Rachel and, to top it all off, runs away from home with her albino boyfriend Hero, only to end up in a detention center as she waits for her parents to pick her up.

It would be your typical minority coming-of-age story, a kind of Korean American “American Beauty,” were it not for the heartbreakingly eloquent riffs that punctuate the narrative, reminiscent of passages in Joyce or Fitzgerald. True, the novel sometimes veers into clichéd territory, as in the depiction of her oh-so-Confucian father, a stereotypical caricature of the emotionally distant (and oftentimes violent) Korean father so often characterized in Korean American stories. Yet what distinguishes the novel is its unmistakable voice: an eclectic mix of duty-bound Confucian daughter and suburban slacker, capable of ruminating on Korea’s tragedy-laden history while exhaling a fat plume of marijuana smoke. When Rachel, Isa’s best friend, asks her how it feels to have done something very, very naughty — sorry, can’t disclose, but it’s juicy — Isa remarks, “Totally transcendent.”

One wouldn’t expect a novel with such a flippant voice to deal with issues like original sin, the nature of destiny and the cultural legacy of han, a Korean word that implies a sense of heart-wrenching loss (not unlike the blues in the deepest sense). Min, however, deftly moves between describing the trivial aspects of teenage suburbia and the more substantive issues of cultural inheritance. A prevalent theme in the novel is how we deal with what our parents pass on to us — their regrets, sins, memories and scars. Min is at her best when she ties the individual’s suffering to the legacy of the larger collective, as when Isa’s father explains the concept of han to his daughter:

“It’s a kind of sadness, or longing. A sense of loss. So much suffering, so much oppression. From China, Japan, from our own Korean kings and governments. … To understand Koreans, Myung Hee, you must understand the concept of han. We learned the hard way that one’s individual will cannot overcome external circumstances. Some factors are too large, too overwhelming.”

Han figures prominently in the story, and the novel gets much of its power from Isa’s gradual acceptance of her lot and destiny. Lurking beneath the story’s veneer of suburban angst and teenage melancholia lies a much more tragic narrative, one that becomes apparent only at the novel’s haunting finale.

The Korean American author will be making an appearance at Seattle’s University Bookstore on Nov. 1 at 7 p.m. She has a local tie; her brother, Kollin Min, ran for the Seattle City Council in 2003.

Written in a fluid style, with concise, emotionally taut chapters, Secondhand World marks the debut of a major talent.

Paul Kim can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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