Yeon-sik Hong

I was a little worried that this book would be really frustrating because the author/protagonist is a mid-30s straight dude cartoonist (who married a woman who was formerly his student) who spends about half of the book freaking out about his career and not being able to Provide As A Husband Should. This is a formula that often leaves me either bored or furious, but Hong writes with such self-awareness and grace that it really worked for me. Also, this is one of the most realistic/relatable/compelling depictions of what it's like to live with and work alongside people as artists that I've read in a long while. Hong's focus on real, grounded detail--from detailing the exhausting stress of being an underemployed artist to the attention paid to the near-daily commutes up and down the mountain to the mountain's changing landscape in different season--lends the book both urgency and a gentle rhythm.… (mer)

I think my enjoyment of this book suffered a bit for reading it right after Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide. I loved Yeon-Sik's previous work, Uncomfortably Happy, but this one puts the focus on the protagonist's relationship with his mom (Umma), and her life of always putting her kids (and their abusive alcoholic dad) first. Madang is living his life differently in that he does all the cooking and shares in childcare, but he also resents it when under deadline and snipes about "spoiling" his wife. So it comes so close to directly addressing the gender roles he was raised with, but then never really does, which frustrated me. I did enjoy the book overall, especially the focus on gardening and food.… (mer)

I probably would never have picked this up except for the #koreanmarch challenge. I hadn't ever heard of it before, but I showed up to the library looking to find every author with a Korean last name and stumbled on this one.

It won me over completely. This is very long and sometimes slow, but in a way that serves the story it is telling. A young married couple moves to the country to save money and distractions while they work on their graphic novel projects, and they end up more isolated than they expected. They throw themselves into gardening, dodging his editor, landscaping, and yelling at people outside for littering. So, big social distancing mood. (I read this the second weekend of pandemic lockdown in Michigan).

There are also some charming little moments of the shared language and weirdnesses of a newly married couple that I really loved. This was ideal COVID-reading for me, and I was so happy to have found it.… (mer)