Shelter

Shelter by Jung Yun is a work of literary fiction about two generations of a Korean-American family, a violent crime, and the struggle that main character Kyung Cho experiences as a father, the victim of childhood abuse, and a man. The novel begins with the marital troubles of Kyung and his wife Gillian, which are compounded when the family is forced to live with Kyung's parents, Mae and Jin, native Koreans who were brutally attacked along with their maid, Marina during a prolonged home invasion. The book centers on Kyung's Korean-American identity, his struggle to be a good father and a happy man when he was given little to look toward for guidance, and the violence that follows the Cho family, both self-inflicted and inflicted by others.

The book opens with a scene with Kyung and his young son Ethan, who is four-years-old. Ethan, like many young boys, has woken up too early, and Kyung finds himself struggling, bleary-eyed, to entertain him. It is clear through this encounter with Ethan that Kyung struggles in his role as a father. He is obviously unhappy with his life, even these mundane moments, and uncertain how to be loving to his only child. This scene illuminates some of the coming troubles that Kyung experiences, many of which originate from his troubled family history.

Kyung is married to Gillian, a white woman whose an Irish-American father, Connie, has disliked Kyung ever since he and Gillian got together. Kyung, a professor, makes a good living – unfortunately, though, he and Gillian have made a number of poor financial choices, which have led them to max out their credit cards and leave bills unpaid. Because of this, Gillian has convinced Kyung to sell the house they live in. Kyung calls a realtor, who gives them an estimate – the real family crisis comes when the estimate on their home doesn't even begin to cover what they owe between their bills and the remainder of their mortgage.



While the realtor is in their home, another, more visceral crisis occurs. The realtor looks out the window to discover Mae, Kyung's elderly mother, wandering through their yard naked. Kyung is obviously concerned, particularly when he notices that his mother has been brutally beaten. She is delirious. Kyung immediately calls the police and gets his mother inside – Kyung tells the police that the perpetrator was likely his own father, who often beat his mother when he was a child.

Kyung and the police go to Mae and Jin's house, where they find that Jin and Marina, the family's maid, have also been brutally beaten. It is clear that home invaders victimized the family, keeping them locked up for days. As the novel unfolds, more and more details about the home invasion unfold, giving the novel the qualities of a thriller or mystery, despite its obvious literary bent.

After the home invasion, Kyung and Gillian live with Mae, Jin, and Marina both because of the financial troubles they are experiencing and because of the fragile nature of Kyung's parents’ mental state after the attack. The result is a reckoning by all members of the family, but especially by Kyung, about decades of abuse, and Kyung’s unhealthy response to his parents – refusing both to forgive them and to cut them out of his life altogether. Kyung believes strongly that his own self-doubt, sadistic nature, and inability to love come from his family history, and that their story is a uniquely Korean one – a problem they could not have avoided because of their heritage. This idea becomes more questionable, however, as the novel goes on, particularly when Gillian's father, Connie, confronts Kyung, telling him that he always knew he had a chip on his shoulder and that he understands the trauma caused by a loveless father.



The violence that plagues the Cho family ultimately leads them to consider and question their own generational violence, the impact it has had, and how to find it within themselves to both apologize and learn how to forgive.

Jung Yun is a Korean-American writer, born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in North Dakota. She received an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Tin House and The Atlantic Monthly. She serves as the fiction editor of the magazine Hyphen, which is focused on the work of Asian Americans. Shelter, her first book, was listed on a number of “Best of” lists, winning the Goodreads Best Fiction Book of the Year Award, a Julia Ward Howe Award, and other honors.