“Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner
Review by Morgan Smith
“Suddenly, my “exotic” look was something to be celebrated.”
Michelle Chongmi Zauner.
Lead of niche alternative band Japanese Breakfast, Zauner tells her story of mourning, self-realization, blood ties, and mounds upon mounds of kimchi. Are you hungry? No? You’re certainly going to have a craving for a country’s cuisine only 6,300 miles away from you.
I’m sitting here, the somber tracks of her debut album Psychopomp in my headphones, the vinyl donned with a candid cover of her late mother Chongmi, her memoir’s front-running protagonist. Haunting voice memos of her mother’s voice bookend the songs, a sense of grief of my own emanating through me, a vicarious feeling I dread to endure.
I read this 239-page book in just under a week, each page intriguing me with polarizing childhood anecdotes, hot pot recipes, and heart-wrenching recollections of Michelle’s caretaking duties after her mother’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Picking up this book, you may hold no interest in the lifetime of an angsty alt band singer and her mommy issues. “Cool cover art” might be the only thing you can optimistically think of. Relating to stories such as these may come as a struggle at first, but without fail, I found an intimate connection to Zauner’s experiences, my own life events somehow mirroring hers.
Memorializing. A literary eulogy that fully embodies a mother and daughter’s journey of clinging to one another as their time dissipates, and the ever-fluctuating events leading to the beautifully melancholic end. To the very last page, your heart aches and rejoices for Michelle’s voice, and her beyond belief ability to share such raw moments with it.
Available at the Red River Public Library today!
Attached is a short interview with Michelle Zauner with CBS Sunday Morning, sharing her heart on her journey with her debut novel, also strolling down the aisles of H-Mart itself.
“Michelle Zauner on ‘Crying in H Mart.’” YouTube, 30 Jan. 2022, https://youtu.be/TW0m4IwHnCY.