At the turn of the twentieth century, in the small Korean village of Yeongdo, an aging couple begins taking in lodgers for extra money. When Korea is annexed by Japan in 1910, much of the country becomes impoverished, but the couple still manages to establish a successful boardinghouse. Their son, Hoonie, who has a cleft palate and twisted foot, even makes a successful and happy marriage to a woman named Yangjin. However, Hoonie dies of tuberculosis when his beloved daughter, Sunja, is only 13.
When Sunja is about 17, she becomes pregnant—months earlier, she’d fallen in love with Hansu, a wealthy fish broker who’d begun speaking to her in the market. However, he refuses to marry her, explaining that he already has a wife and children in Japan. Hansu offers to support Sunja financially and be with her when he’s in town on business, but Sunja refuses to be Hansu’s mistress, even though as an unwed mother, she’ll be disgraced in the eyes of society.
Meanwhile, a well-dressed, sickly young pastor, Baek Isak, arrives at the boardinghouse. Yangjin and Sunja recognize the signs of tuberculosis and nurse Isak back to health. When Isak is well, Yangjin confides in him about Sunja’s vulnerable situation, and he decides to propose to Sunja—offering his name to her and her baby is the only thing he can do to help. Sunja agrees to marry him.
After they’re married, Isak and Sunja move to Osaka, Japan, living with Isak’s brother Yoseb and sister-in-law, Kyunghee. Soon, Sunja gives birth to a son, Noa. Despite poverty and systemic injustices against Koreans, the family manages to get by in Ikaino, Osaka’s impoverished Korean neighborhood. About six years later, Sunja and Isak have another son, Mozasu. World War II is underway, and the Japanese government requires everyone, including Christians, to worship the Emperor in weekly Shinto ceremonies. During one of these ceremonies, Hu, the sexton in Isak’s church, recites the Lord’s Prayer as an act of resistance, leading to Isak’s arrest as well. While Isak is imprisoned, Sunja and Kyunghee start a successful food cart in the Ikaino market. Soon, a restaurant manager named Kim Changho hires them to cook for him, relieving their financial burdens. Three years later, a starved, sick, and tortured Isak is finally released from prison in time to die at home.
Near the end of the war, Hansu reappears, explaining to Sunja that he owns Changho’s restaurant, and he arranged for her to be hired after Isak was jailed; he’d tracked her down after she pawned the gold watch he’d given her when she was a girl. He warns her that Osaka will be bombed soon, and he arranges for Sunja and her whole family to flee to a farm in the countryside, where they will be safe and well-fed. He even tracks down Yangjin and reunites her with her with her daughter and grandsons. Later, he also rescues Yoseb after he is critically injured in the Nagasaki bombing.
After the family is resettled in Osaka, bookish Noa works hard to get accepted to Waseda University, and Mozasu takes a job at Goro’s pachinko parlor in order to stay out of trouble. Mozasu quickly thrives and begins working his way up in the industry. After Noa finally gets accepted to Waseda, Sunja approaches Hansu for help in paying for his tuition. Hansu refuses to give Sunja a loan, explaining he’s already paid all of Noa’s fees and gotten him an apartment. Sunja feels stuck, hating to accept Hansu’s continued interference, yet wanting the best opportunities for Noa.
One day, Noa’s then-girlfriend, Akiko, points out his obvious resemblance to Hansu. Noa confronts Sunja and is distraught to confirm that Hansu is in fact his father, believing that after a lifetime of trying to rise above racist taunts, his tie to a yakuza irrevocably taints his blood. Noa drops out of Waseda and moves to Nagano to begin a new life in which he passes as Japanese. He runs the business office of a pachinko parlor, marries a woman named Risa, and has four children. For 16 years, he successfully lives as a middle-class Japanese family man, but after Hansu and Sunja track him down in 1978, he commits suicide after claiming that “yakuza blood” “is something that controls you.”
Mozasu marries Yumi, a Korean seamstress, and they have a son, Solomon. After Yumi is killed by a drunk driver, Sunja leaves behind her confectionery stand, now a successful shop, and moves in with Mozasu to care for Solomon. Mozasu raises Solomon in Western schools and wants him to work for an American company someday. By the time Solomon is a teenager, Mozasu is dating Etsuko, a Japanese divorcee. Solomon is in love with Etsuko’s troubled daughter, Hana, until he goes away to Columbia University, where he dates a Korean-American girl named Phoebe. Phoebe returns to Tokyo with Solomon when he lands a good job at a British investment bank. However, he’s fired after Goro helps him track down an elderly Korean woman who’s holding up a real estate transaction; his boss, Kazu, is spooked by Solomon’s yakuza connections. Phoebe dumps Solomon after he declines to move back to the United States and marry her.
With the encouragement of a dying Hana, Solomon goes to work for his dad’s pachinko business. Although Mozasu hadn’t wanted Solomon to be part of the tainted gambling industry, Solomon trusts that his father is an honest man, and he now doubts he’ll ever be able to rise above his outsider status in Japanese society. At the end of the novel, Sunja visits Isak’s grave and learns from the groundskeeper, Uchida, that Noa had visited the grave until his death, confirming that despite his anger at Hansu and his grief over his “yakuza” blood, he still loved Sunja and honored her and Isak’s sacrifices for him.
