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A review by liralen
Palimpsest: Documents from a Korean Adoption by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom
4.0
One of several books I've read recently written by adult adoptees who went looking for their roots. Each of the authors I'm thinking of grew up in a different country ([b:Jenny Heijun Wills|43416752|Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. A Memoir|Jenny Heijun Wills|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553537970l/43416752._SX50_.jpg|67461604] in Canada, [b:Nicole Chung|30297153|All You Can Ever Know A Memoir|Nicole Chung|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1519748414l/30297153._SY75_.jpg|50777526] in the U.S., Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom in Sweden), but the questions are by and large the same: why and how and what would life have been like if...?
In Palimpsest (a new word for me—'a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing; something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form'), Sjöblom chronicles her search for her biological family in Korea. It's a maddening search: every question she asks of various agencies in Korea produces contradictory and often unhelpful results; often, the organisations meant to help people reunite with their families seem to spend their time trying to convince adoptees that that's impossible or unnecessary. Nobody wants to think that, perhaps, adoptees might not be satisfied with an unknown history.
This is graphic memoir, and though I'm not in love with the style of art (personal preference—it's pretty; I just like more detail), it adds a nice layer to the story—fitting, for a palimpsest. Just as Sjöblom's story has been partially redrawn for her, she redraws her own history, or as much of it as she can fill in. For every answer another question, and I can only imagine that there will be more books along these lines as Sjöblom's generation hunts for those answers.
In Palimpsest (a new word for me—'a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing; something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form'), Sjöblom chronicles her search for her biological family in Korea. It's a maddening search: every question she asks of various agencies in Korea produces contradictory and often unhelpful results; often, the organisations meant to help people reunite with their families seem to spend their time trying to convince adoptees that that's impossible or unnecessary. Nobody wants to think that, perhaps, adoptees might not be satisfied with an unknown history.
This is graphic memoir, and though I'm not in love with the style of art (personal preference—it's pretty; I just like more detail), it adds a nice layer to the story—fitting, for a palimpsest. Just as Sjöblom's story has been partially redrawn for her, she redraws her own history, or as much of it as she can fill in. For every answer another question, and I can only imagine that there will be more books along these lines as Sjöblom's generation hunts for those answers.