Nuclear Family
Joseph Han
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Nuclear Family
Joseph Han
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
You’d have to visit Cirque du Soleil to see someone juggle as much as Han with such effortless dexterity and tenderness. Generational trauma, the American dream, the consequences of conquest. And his prose is rhythmic and hypnotic; it captivates from the very first page and gracefully conveys the loss and the longing the family experiences. Coupled with this are frequent, butter-smooth shifts in perspective, allowing us to occupy a multitude of hearts and minds with such intimacy as to feel almost intrusive.
Han is very funny both in small moments and larger ones.
I suspect the desire amongst Korean American writers to examine this double diaspora haunts them, especially since many Americans do not have a nuanced understanding of inter-Korean relations, despite the US being a major player in the Korean War in the first place. Han skewers this brand of frustrating American ignorance in his book as well, mainly through Jacob’s family’s experience in Hawai’i.
Tragic, funny, and strikingly ingenious, Han’s prodigious debut is a spectacular achievement. Seamlessly dovetailed into his sublime multigenerational saga are pivotal history lessons, anti-colonial denunciations, political slaps. For Korean speakers, Han’s brilliant linguistic acrobatics will prove particularly enlightening...and shrewdly entertaining..
Beautifully strange.
Han makes a smashing debut with this stunning take on identity and migration told through the multiple perspectives of a Korean American family.
Han’s surreal fantasy, sometimes devolving into slapstick, contains a serious critique: of the marginalization of Korean immigrants; of the plight of families separated by a politically contrived border; of shattered lives, pain, and guilt.