Review by deeb_reads - Crying in H Mart

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deeb_reads 's review for:

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

I’d heard mixed reviews on this book, and I’m pretty picky about “Asian American” books, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I did end up really enjoying it– as much as you can enjoy what is ultimately a very sad book about the death of your mother. Crying in H Mart is a personal and strongly written memoir that does not shy away from the visceral and uncomfortable experiences that it covers. I also think it is a better personal memoir than “Asian American” book– while Michelle Zauner’s intimate narration about her family life stands out, I’ve read several other books that grapple better with the political and cultural themes that the book attempts to cover.

Much like Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, a complex mother daughter bond is the center of the book, as well as its strain under the weight of a terminal cancer diagnosis. (Zauner’s mother Chongmi, while complicated, is thankfully nowhere near as cruel as McCurdy’s.) Zauner is brutally honest in detailing the ways that she and her mother at times hurt each other, but she also captures the depth of their connection. She details the heart-wrenching reality of caring for someone with a terminal illness, avoiding platitudes or easy answers. Besides her relationship with her mother, she also reflects upon her ambiguous bond with her father and the difficulties of connecting cross-culturally with her mother’s family in Korea. I found myself compelled by the vignettes and feelings she chooses to highlight, most of which connect to her family.

Although I knew Zauner is a songwriter, I also loved her prose. She is creative but not overblown with figurative language, and she deftly balances dark humor and sincere vulnerability. I found her prose lovely to read in itself. While it’s far from a fast-paced thriller, I had no problem staying interested. She communicates her insights without being didactic or “telling not showing,” and her descriptions of feelings and settings are quite evocative.

I do agree with some criticisms of this book’s pacing and structure. The nonlinear, essay collection-like chapter format mostly works for me. In some instances, though, it feels like important loose ends are not tied up or take too long to reappear in the story. I also found the descriptions of food to be a huge drag on pacing. At times, the parts about food are important to the story at hand. Zauner’s mother loved food, and food becomes a stressor as Chongmi’s illness worsens and later a way for Zauner to honor Chongmi’s memory and Korean heritage after Chongmi passes. At others, the descriptions of food have little relevance to the surrounding narrative and feel a little out of place.

Food also ties into some of my critiques of this book as an “Asian American” work. I did enjoy some of Zauner’s writing about the language barriers between herself and her extended family, as well as her at times fraught relationship with her Korean heritage as a mixed-race Asian American. However, I found her insights on her own family and personal loss to be more insightful than the parts of the book delving into race and “Koreanness," which feel limited to food and cultural differences.

To be fair, Asian Americanness and ethnicity are ambiguous and impossible to fully capture or define. But at times, I wished Zauner would go deeper into examining “Koreanness” beyond cuisine and cultural quirks, which at times seem a bit culturally essentialist and almost self-orientalizing. I don’t think this focus is intentionally an attempt to limit Asian American identity to depoliticized signifiers. It may be somewhat unavoidable given that Zauner’s family loves food, Zauner is not fluent in Korean, and she herself grew up in a very white community in rural Oregon, with her mother and extended family as her main reference point to Korean or Asian diasporic identity. None of this means that her identity is invalid! Obviously, memoirs are very personal, and I think this book is an incredibly compelling example of a memoir. However, I would have liked it better as an “Asian American” book had it put a bit more thought into the historical or political side of things. Korea and America have a very fraught history with plenty of meddling and military intrusion from the American side, the omission of which seems a little weird given that Zauner’s mother and father met because of the US military bases in Korea. I also would have loved to read more about Zauner’s thoughts of the heavily white indie music scene as an Asian American, which is only touched on briefly in regards to representation.

Despite the long winded complaint, I did actually enjoy this book. It’s an intimate and vulnerable portrait of grief that is well written to boot. I definitely could have done with more Minor Feelings- style analysis on culture and politics, but it’s still worth a read.

Content Warnings