Min Jin Lee

You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let’s see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration.
—Charles Dickens

he peasants knew that a spoiled son did more harm to a family than a dead one,

en have choices that women don’t.

Whether China capitulated or avenged itself, the weeds would have to be pulled from the vegetable garden, rope sandals would need to be woven if they were to have shoes, and the thieves who tried often to steal their few chickens had to be kept away

This was his burden, not hers

knew nothing about having a baby. What she was growing inside her was a secret—mysterious even to herself

Sunja remained quiet and still like a seedling sprouting from new soil, upright and open to collect the light. She would have uprooted herself to have seen the world with him, and now she was seeing it without him.

“But a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn’t be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. He wouldn’t be God. There’s more to everything than we can know.”

At his father’s insistence, Hoonie learned to read and write Korean and Japanese from the village schoolmaster well enough to keep a boardinghouse ledger and to do sums in his head so he couldn’t be cheated at the market.