Excerpt from The Liberators by E.J. Koh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

My employee answered with a smile in his voice. He said my daughter was a beauty, but she was the spitting image of her mother, who'd died from heartbreak. I said it was an aneurysm—he suspected it was the same thing. I was certain he meant no harm. My employee said it was natural that I wanted my daughter married, so I could bring another woman into the home. I would need a girlfriend soon. By the time I recognized his meaning, enough time had passed to make my silence inappropriate. I thought carefully of what to say: "A widower feels a widow's sorrow." My employee agreed that it must be lonely living with my daughter. He encouraged me to do what was in my best interest, like the Americans. I bargained for his youngest son. My employee said his wife wouldn't agree to it. She thought it too early for me to marry again. He'd rather talk about the riots and the spies from the North. After the phone call, I was discouraged enough to give up. But my late wife, Namjo, had told me it could be one man who turned our lives around, and wasn't that man also looking for us?

My daughter's room was empty. On the dining table, rice and soup bowls, two pale moons left under the lace-work of a cover sewn by my late wife. I dug through my phone book, finding the matchmaker's number. She'd have no qualms because this was her business. But she, too, answered with a gripe. She said there should be a line of suitors out the door, but everyone was paranoid. Without peace in this country, what could we do but find peace in our homes? People would forgive me about my wife, but I better move out of the house because my son-in-law couldn't go into the kitchen without goosebumps. "A house with a heartbroken woman," she said, "can never be a home." That afternoon, I felt unwell and boiled water for tea. Why couldn't they invite us over for dinner and pull me aside and say I'd raised a good family? The problems with my choices could wait, but Namjo had asked me to secure a better home for our daughter. The drawers hid their knives. The drain filled with hair. Shadows of lilac stems crossed the room, so polite they could shut the door behind them. The floor pulsed with dust caught in the broad light. Namjo had always worn green, her ribbons like curling leaf tips—it brought me such memories. Then a sharp whistle on the stove.

Excerpted from The Liberators by E.J. Koh. Copyright © 2023 by E.J. Koh. Excerpted by permission of Tin House Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.