By Lucy Levinson
Michelle Zauner is a writer and musician who performs under the band name Japanese Breakfast; her Twitter bio reads, “PSA: I’m Korean.” Japanese Breakfast released their third studio album, Jubilee, this past June, but prior to forging her path in the music industry, Zauner earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College.
A few years ago, Michelle Zauner wrote the essay “Crying in H Mart,” which the New Yorker published in 2018.
In H Mart, the Korean-American supermarket that specializes in Asian groceries, Zauner simultaneously bridges and grieves the gap she feels from her Korean identity after her mother’s death. She writes, “Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?”
In April of 2021, this essay became the first chapter of her full-length memoir, Crying in H Mart; the book delves into grief, family, identity, and food. Among many things, Zauner details the nature of her relationship with her mother, from a tumultuous lack of mutual understanding in high school to an intense effort to salvage time by caring for her mother as she underwent chemotherapy.
After her mother died, Zauner discovered that the ritual of learning how to cook Korean food was restorative. In many ways, Zauner’s vivacious descriptions of food serve as a device that weaves through the storylines of her life. However, these recipes carry immense value in and of themselves, as Zauner navigates not only the loss of her mother but her most accessible connection to Korea as well.
Crying in H Mart is a book I recommend to my teenage friends and grandparents alike. I read it this past spring, in the throes of virtual learning. I vividly remember lying on my bedroom floor between Zoom classes and reading a chapter--it demands the reader’s devotion.
Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart is a tender, honest, and fluid memoir that is not to be missed.
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