Crying in H Mart is a memoir by Michelle Zauner, guitarist and singer in the band Japanese Breakfast. This book is as much a coming of age story as it is a story of loss. In it Zauner goes into the details of her mother’s death, the traumatizing effects of watching her slowly wither away from cancer and the tumultuous relationship she had with her growing up.
First Impressions
I listened to Crying in H Mart as an audiobook and found Michelle’s voice sounded so familiar. It was like sitting in a room with a friend who was talking about her life, her aches and dreams. Though I wished at points that I was reading it instead of listening, due to the way some words were rushed by while others slowly cooed at me.
Zauner herself is also someone I can heavily relate to, as she’s the mixed child of a white father and Korean mom (though I am not white, I am mixed). The result is that she also struggles with some of the ways society sees and treats her, both as an Asian person and as a mixed person. Throughout the story, especially in her early years, Michelle recounts the many times people racially harassed her, made assumptions about who she was and who she wasn’t. For Michelle, her mother was her strongest tie to her Korean roots and to Korea. So with her passing there is a loss that goes beyond that of losing a mom, but includes the fear of losing a culture, identity and part of ones self.
Writing Style
The beginning of Crying in H Mart feels a bit like someone riding a bike with training wheels on. The wording is fine, just a little bit clumsy at points. By the middle and near the end Michelle is soaring, her sentences flow so much better and feel more impactful. In fact, this book is chock full of quotes that feel like they speak right to the centre of my soul.
“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”
Michelle Zauner
A Love Letter to Food
While reading, it becomes evident that Crying in H Mart is also a love letter to food. Michelle goes through a period of cooking intensely American comfort food, to console herself, but it is Korean food that she talks about with passion, as it was her mother’s love language. She describes everything she remembers cooking in detail, remembers the tone of voice of the cooks she watched as they guided her through each recipe. She recalls the food she made with her mother, with memories laced with an undercurrent of intensity.
Grief
Lastly, Michelle’s agony resounds throughout this book. Her mother passed away in 2014 and Crying in H Mart came out in 2021, after presumably a few Covid years of dedicated writing. I can think of nothing more horrible than to grieve and mourn someone for so many long years, and to have to “face” some of this grief head-on when Covid demanded so many of us stay at home. Whether home is a place of lost opportunity, joy, or horror – Zauner’s words radiate with both sorrow and love, something that is difficult not to relate to.
Rating: 3.5/5
I do think I would have rated this more highly if I had read it rather than listened to it, but it also kept me company during some of my own long and uncomfortable hours.
If you’d like a copy of Crying in H Mart you can get it at Bookshop.org if you’re in the USA, or the Book Outlet if you’re in Canada.
