Crying in H Mart

As even the title of Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, suggests, the book is focused on the link between food, cultural heritage, and familial relationships. Michelle, born to a white American father and a Korean mother, has always believed that her tastebuds provide the deepest link to both to her mom, Chongmi, and to her Korean identity as a whole. Indeed, it is primarily when Michelle delights in kimchi…

Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner’s 2021 memoir about the loss of her beloved mother Chongmi, ends as Michelle starts to receive widespread artistic recognition—both for her work as a nonfiction essayist and in her capacity as the frontwoman for the band Japanese Breakfast. But rather than seeing these artistic pursuits as separate from Chongmi’s illness, Michelle shows just how closely her creative life is connected to her life as a daughter…

Michelle Zauner, frontwoman of the indie band Japanese Breakfast, spends much of her memoir Crying in H Mart describing her experience as the child of an American-born white father and a Korean-born Korean mother. Because of her mixed-race background, Michelle often struggles to feel like she belongs; she is the target of racist comments from her classmates in Eugene, Oregon, and she feels “exotic” and foreign whenever she goes to visit Seoul with her…

Crying in H Mart, musician Michelle Zauner’s 2021 memoir about her complex relationship with her mother, spends much of its time in hospitals and sick beds, as Chongmi succumbs to stage IV cancer. But while Michelle recounts each detail of her mother’s physical deterioration—Chongmi’s hair loss, or her tongue covered in sores “as though a spider had cast it in a thick gray web”—she also reflects on her mother’s lifelong fixation on her…