Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

In this exquisite story of circle of relatives, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself way over a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the vital few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would turn into her husband–her Koreanness started to feel ever more distant, at the same time as she found the life she wanted to live. It used to be her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle used to be twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Wealthy with intimate anecdotes to be able to resonate widely, and complete with circle of relatives photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.