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A review by jesshindes
Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I read this for book group and found it super interesting. The protagonist/narrator is a middle-aged woman who works in a care home, looking after Jen, who used to be a well-known activist and is now suffering with dementia. As the book opens, the narrator's daughter, Green, who is precariously employed as a university lecturer (holler to all my traumatised PhD friends), is asking her for financial help; in the end, this takes the shape of a place to stay. Green moves into the narrator's house, and so does her girlfriend Lane. This is a big problem for the narrator, who's clinging to the homophobic belief that the relationship (which has lasted several years) is just a bit of youthful foolishness; that her daughter will settle down in the right way, with a man, and have a family.
I hadn't read anything with a protagonist quite like this before. In lots of ways, the narrator is unsympathetic. She doesn't try very hard to understand Green's perspective; she chooses, repeatedly, to be rude to Lane (who is both kind and understanding, more so than the narrator deserves). She invalidates and questions her daughter's life - her job, her relationship - again and again. "If your relationship was legitimate, you'd be able to get married," she tells Green, clinging to the authority of a society that Kim shows elsewhere to be manifestly unjust: in its treatment of insecurely employed lecturers like Green, of LGBTQ+ people, of the elderly in the care home where the narrator works. I thought that in particular was realistic; that someone very much screwed over by the system might cling to its authority even more tightly.
Despite all of this, Kim also shows us the beginnings of a more complicated understanding. This manifests initially at work. The narrator isn't able to treat Jen in the way that her manager instructs her to. She can't stop caring about or for her. She tries to find her family, or an equivalent of family; because she believes, very strongly, in the obligations of children and parents to one another (which is why she takes Green into her house despite her reluctance). Within all of this is an understanding that Jen's life has been lived outside normal social bounds. She wasn't married, didn't have children. And still the narrator can't bring herself to throw her away. This, and the escalating crisis at Green's university, start to shake the narrator's belief system just a little.
The book doesn't resolve neatly, with the narrator seeing the light. She's still very limited in the degree to which she's willing to accept Green and Lane. But things do begin - have begun - to change, which feels maybe more realistic. As I said, I hadn't read anything quite like this before. It was knotty, problematic. But I enjoyed it.
I hadn't read anything with a protagonist quite like this before. In lots of ways, the narrator is unsympathetic. She doesn't try very hard to understand Green's perspective; she chooses, repeatedly, to be rude to Lane (who is both kind and understanding, more so than the narrator deserves). She invalidates and questions her daughter's life - her job, her relationship - again and again. "If your relationship was legitimate, you'd be able to get married," she tells Green, clinging to the authority of a society that Kim shows elsewhere to be manifestly unjust: in its treatment of insecurely employed lecturers like Green, of LGBTQ+ people, of the elderly in the care home where the narrator works. I thought that in particular was realistic; that someone very much screwed over by the system might cling to its authority even more tightly.
Despite all of this, Kim also shows us the beginnings of a more complicated understanding. This manifests initially at work. The narrator isn't able to treat Jen in the way that her manager instructs her to. She can't stop caring about or for her. She tries to find her family, or an equivalent of family; because she believes, very strongly, in the obligations of children and parents to one another (which is why she takes Green into her house despite her reluctance). Within all of this is an understanding that Jen's life has been lived outside normal social bounds. She wasn't married, didn't have children. And still the narrator can't bring herself to throw her away. This, and the escalating crisis at Green's university, start to shake the narrator's belief system just a little.
The book doesn't resolve neatly, with the narrator seeing the light. She's still very limited in the degree to which she's willing to accept Green and Lane. But things do begin - have begun - to change, which feels maybe more realistic. As I said, I hadn't read anything quite like this before. It was knotty, problematic. But I enjoyed it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia
Moderate: Ableism