Back Cover Blurb of Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
From the indie rock star of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.
“I remember these things clearly because that was how my mother loved you, not through white lies and constant verbal affirmation, but in subtle observations of what brought you joy, pocketed away to make you feel comforted and cared for without even realizing it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
To stay true to my format, I picked a favorite quote from this book that I do like. But there was a beloved quote from a different book that kept me company while listening to this book.
“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
In this book, it is literally true. She is wandering around H Mart, looking for an identity among her descriptions of the brightly labeled packaging. I wonder if this is why this book has such broad appeal beyond the Korean-American population. We use up our decision making and identity forming power on choosing our breakfast cereal or whatever and then we are out of it for things that matter. So when someone from our neighborhood shares that they are now homeless, we wish them love and light in their transition and direct them to the local church or Walmart parking lot instead of offering them a place to stay or taking broader action to fight homelessness in the community. The brightly colored labels reassure us that as long as we are worth marketing to, we matter.
This book is fantastic to listen to while making dinner, as it has so many beautiful descriptions of food. At some point, while making foods from ethnicities that are not mine. It made me wonder if my appreciation of foods from around the world meant that I might be culturally appropriating my menu, but then I decided that lots of people have spent lots of time finding the most delicious things and to not use that would be throwing out a lot of human effort.
Thankfully, my mother is still alive. As more of my friends loose their mothers, I am more and more grateful that I don’t relate to this part of the book yet. I continued with the story until her mother died and she and her father randomly went to Vietnam to get over the grief. Then I could not bring myself to read anymore. So many people I know are wading through so much grief while shouldering so many responsibilities, I just lost interest. A trip did not fix that her mother is gone. She cannot buy an identity or a way out of grief. Poor thing.
I bet the movie will be beautiful, though. Lots of great travel and food imagery (simple pleasures of being alive) along side cathartic processing of grief (deep pain of death) is the best of this book. It is like the balance she talks about in so many of her foods between salty, sweet, sour, and spicy. While writing this, I did also check out one song by Japanese Breakfast. Another thing I can sort of appreciate, but is not exactly to my taste.