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A young woman returns to the prairies, where she revisits her immigrant childhood and confronts a haunting guilt, in this debut novel by a brilliant new talent.
Anne Kim is a lawyer in New York, her success built on forgetting the past. When her father dies, she returns to Edmonton for the funeral and is shocked to discover he was from North Korea and left his brother behind.
As she reads the undelivered letters her father wrote to his brother about life in Canada, she is transported back to her childhood in the 1980s and 90s. She recalls the struggles her parents faced as immigrants who ran a grocery store in a rural prairie town. Anne and her brother, Charles, felt the weight of their father's expectations: Anne was driven to excel and overachieve, whereas Charles rebelled, determined to pursue his own dreams. His rebellion created a rift that culminated in a devastating act, irrevocably shattering their family and leaving Anne overwhelmed by an inescapable guilt.
Inheritance explores the immigrant experience, the sacrifices made by both parents and children, and how trauma transfers to the next generation. As Anne journeys to the past, she emerges to finally define life on her own terms, and her story will resonate long after the final page.
"Second-generation Korean Canadian Jane Park's gorgeous debut novel, Inheritance, achingly encapsulates an immigrant family coming to terms with their closest, yet least empathic, relationships: with each other." —Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Park's debut recounts the home life, struggles, and history of a shopkeeping Korean family that immigrates to a rural town in Alberta, Canada, making it an interesting juxtaposition to the many U.S.-set immigrant stories. Readers seeking stories about the intergenerational impacts of the Korean War and the challenges Korean immigrants faced will find Park's novel satisfying, with its strong pacing and plotting and well-developed characters." —Library Journal
"Sparsely written and deeply affecting, Inheritance lingers long after the final page—a quiet, devastating meditation on guilt, parental expectations, and the lasting consequences of generational silence. As a Canadian child of immigrants, I know this book will stay with me for a long time." —Rachel Phan, author of Restaurant Kid
"With Inheritance, Jane Park peels back the familiar, exposing the unfamiliar that lies beneath. It is a novel about unearthed family secrets…secrets maybe best kept buried, but impossible to ignore. Propulsive from the start, this debut showcases one Korean Canadian family facing heartbreak, turmoil, and unspoken histories in a way that is both intimate and unforgettable. Certainly, an important contribution to Asian writing in Canada and beyond." —Jenny Heijun Wills, award-winning author of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related and Everything and Nothing at All
This information about Inheritance was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jane Park is a second-generation Korean Canadian writer. She is a MacDowell Fellow, and was a participant in the Banff Centre's Writing Studio, and Diaspora Dialogues. She was born in Edmonton, Alberta, lived in New York City for over a decade, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA at the University of British Columbia. Inheritance is her debut novel.
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