Casey Han graduates Princeton without a job, having deferred her Columbia Law School acceptance without telling her parents, hard-working Korea immigrants who manage a dry cleaners in Queens. After a nasty confrontation with her father, she is forced to move out, the relationship forever strained. When her plan to move in with her white-guy college boyfriend falls through in the most embarrassing fashion, Casey is a woman cast adrift. Eventually, through the remarkable kindness of Ella, a girl from church, Casey finds a place to […]

Born to hard-working Korean parents who run a boarding-house for fisherman, Sunja is expecting a hard life full of work and suffering until a chance encounter with a powerful businessman sets her life and her family’s fortunes on a far different trajectory as they embark on new lives in Japan. Through the following decades, which comprise most of the 20th century, Sunja, her sons, and the wider family that develops around them will go through all the vicissitudes of life while trying to stick together […]