When you're about to rewrite "38" as "36," Hyong-chol says you have to write 1938, because that's the official date. Because many children didn't survive their first three months, people raised them for a few years before making it official. Your father says everyone did that, back in the day. This is the first time you've heard this. Official records show that she was born in 1938, but apparently she was born in 1936. When you write July 24, 1938, as Mom's birth date, your father corrects you, saying that she was born in 1936. You aren't sure how helpful your words will be in finding Mom. You blush, as if you were caught doing something you shouldn't. Hyong-chol designates you to write up the flyer, since you write for a living. You want to go look for her in places where you think she might be, but you know how she is: she can't go anywhere by herself in this city.
Your younger brother, who owns an online clothing store, says he posted something about your mother's disappearance, describing where she went missing he uploaded her picture and asked people to contact the family if they'd seen her.
All you can do is file a missing-person report, search the area, ask passersby if they have seen anyone who looks like her. But there are few things a missing person's family can do, and the missing person is none other than your mom. Of course, a flyer is an old-fashioned response to a crisis like this. The first thing to do, everyone agrees, is to draft a flyer. You decide to make flyers and hand them out where Mom was last seen. The family is gathered at your eldest brother Hyong-chol's house, bouncing ideas off each other. (Apr.It's been one week since Mom went missing. As memories accrue, the narrative becomes increasingly poignant and psychologically revealing of all the characters, and though it does sometimes go soggy with pathos, most readers should find resonance in this family story, a runaway bestseller in Korea poised for a similar run here. Narrating in her own voice late in the book, the spirit of Mom watches her family and finally voices her lifelong loneliness and depression and recalls the one secret in her life. Her irresponsible and harshly critical husband, meanwhile, finally acknowledges the depth of his love and the seriousness of her sacrifices for him. Having, through Mom's unstinting dedication, achieved professional success, her children understand for the first time the hardships she endured. After Park So-nyo's disappearance, her grown children and her husband are filled with guilt and remorse at having taken So-nyo for granted and reflect, in a round-robin of narration, on her life and role in their lives. Shin's affecting English-language debut centers on the life of a hardworking, uncomplaining woman who goes missing in a bustling Seoul subway station.
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