Once the Shore: Stories [J0188]

2009 - PB Excellent condition. With Once the Shore, Paul Yoon delivers an astonishing debut of linked short stories set on a South Korean island. Spanning over half a century-from the years just before the Korean War to the present-the eight stories in this collection reveal an intricate and unforgettable portrait of a single place in its entirety. An elderly couple embark on a fishing boat in a harrowing journey to find their son, hoping that he has survived a bombing in the Pacific. A Japanese orphaned woman's past revisits her with devastating consequences in a wartime hospital. A case of mistaken identity compels a husband and wife to question the foundation upon which their lives have been built. An AWOL American soldier finds refuge in a small farming community, unknowingly endangering its inhabitants. And in the celebrated title story, a horrific accident at sea becomes the catalyst for an unlikely friendship between an American widow and a young waiter at a coastal resort. These stories capture, with lyrical precision, the moments in which lives shift and unravel; where loss is ultimately turned into a search for reconciliation, and where the silences that pass between lovers and siblings, between parents and their children, are as powerful as the reverberations of war. Novelistic in scope, daring in its varied environments, Once the Shore introduces a remarkable new voice in international fiction.

From mixed recent-ish Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "The writing is beautiful, but these stories are sorrowful and heavy and haunting. They leave me wanting more. I need to know the endings, because none of them really had any closure. Several of them stirred up complicated feelings I have about the Japanese occupation/colonization and about the Korean War and the foreign intervention that came with it, as well as the unwanted ongoing US military presence in my birth country."; "Beautiful book of stories. Shadows and light, mountains and trees, heartbreak and sadness written with such lovely words. A collection of stories that are haunting and unsettled at times but very touching with the various characters showing love for the dead as well as the living."; "The stories in this collection are tied together through setting - a South Korean island. Quiet and thoughtful, each story is filled with beautiful melancholy and transports the reader to this island. All of the stories are centered around a pivotal moment in the lives of the characters we meet: a couple on a journey to find their lost son, an unlikely friendship with a deep connection, a woman forced to revisit her past. Stunning writing and unique storytelling make this a wonderful book."