February Review Blitz: Please Look After Mom

In a crowded Seoul subway station, a rural visitor boards a train. But his wife of fifty years becomes lost in the crowd; the train pulls away without her. He turns around at the next station, but by the time he returns to where he last saw her, she’s gone.

This disappearance is the driving force behind Kyung-sook Shin’s novel Please Look After Mom, a wrenching look into the complex web of family dynamics, the things that bring them together, and the things that tear them apart.

Mom’s vanishing devastates her five grown children and her husband. As the days turn into months and even the police give up searching for her, they find themselves fraught with guilt, consumed by memories of the woman they loved, yet mostly took for granted. These memories are woven together to create, in rich detail, the portrait of a life that may or not be over.

The story is told from four points of view: Chi-hon, the second eldest child and oldest daughter, Hyung-chol, the eldest son, Father, and Mom herself. We start with Chi-hon, a successful novelist. She recalls a hardworking woman, a country wife and mother who was never educated, who often embarrassed and infuriated Chi-hon with her ignorance and superstition. Hyung-chol suffers wracking guilt; as the adored oldest child, Mom both worshipped and pressured him. His dream of becoming the lawyer she wanted him to be, as well as his dream of raising her above her situation and giving her a comfortable life, were lost somewhere along the path his life has taken. Father finds himself lost, unable even to do the simple household tasks his wife always took care of. He too has plenty to berate himself for: selfishness, resentment, adultery, abandonment. As they all wonder how a grown women could have become so thoroughly lost, their recent memories bring up a common theme that points to their mother having severe health and mental problems that none of them wanted to see.

When Mom’s turn comes, we are given the answer to at least one question, though her children may never learn it. She confesses her worry for her younger daughter, a mother with three small children and the closest to Mom in her situation. She recalls her youth, her arranged marriage, all the terror and wonder of motherhood, and she reveals one or two secrets her family will likely never know.

The final chapter returns the story to Chi-hon, who finds herself facing a strange new world: a place where her mother doesn’t exist. There is no resolution to this story, as such. The characters simply fumble ahead, perhaps never knowing what happened to their wife and mother, and only now appreciating what she meant to all of them.

Please Look After Mom is a gut-wrenching novel that will haunt readers long after they finish it. While anyone with a mother can relate, it will resonate most strongly with people my age (31, if you really want to know) and older- people who are now realizing that their parents are aging, that they may have to serve as their caretakers someday, that their parents will eventually be gone and they will be alone. Readers who also have children will appreciate both points of view: the adult children suddenly unmoored, and the parents watching their kids grow up and away from them.

The writing style of Please Look After Mom is clear and graceful; it’s a relatively quick read, and for once the translation has no awkward moments. Shin uses every point of view available: Hyung-chol is written in third person, Mom is first person, Father and Chi-hon are in second person. Second person is annoying; it has the effect of distancing a reader from the character, probably the opposite of what the author intended. But the sheer intimacy of the novel luckily saves it from being too gimmicky of an approach.

I have one other admittedly minor complaint about Please Look After Mom. Three of the kids are explored in intimate detail: their actions, feelings, memories. But there are five children altogether. What about the second-oldest son or the youngest son? They receive passing mentions, but you can’t help but wonder how they are handling their mother’s disappearance. They have the feel of missing puzzle pieces. Adding them into the story would likely have doubled the length of the book, so you can understand why Shin left them out. Yet you can’t help but feel a bit bereft.

Please Look After Mom paints a vivid picture of modern South Korea. It’s rural and urban, modern and archaic, old and young. But despite the between the lives of the American readers and the Korean characters, we can feel connected to them: families, no matter where they live, are in many ways the same.

Please Look After Mom will be released in the United States in April 2011.

The Verdict: Definitely worth your time. This book will make you call your mom, just to hear her voice and make sure she’s still there.