When the daughter crashes at the home with Lane, her partner of seven years, the mother at first practices her usual strategy which is turning a blind eye to the nature of their relationship. The mother has some supplemental income from renting out the upper flats in her building and working at an old age home. Soon enough, the mother’s prejudices begin to test the reader’s patience. This single focus, where we find ourselves reading through the wary eyes of a worn-down 70-year-old widow (who remains unnamed throughout the book), seems a poor choice, since the daughter, nicknamed Green, is lesbian and the mother happens to be a virulent homophobe.

That the transition doesn’t always work out well for well-intentioned people is also the subject of Parasite (2019), the Oscar-winning surprise hit directed by Bong Joon Ho.Ĭoncerning My Daughter is narrated in its entirety by the mother of the daughter in the title. Concerning My Daughter, the Korean bestselling novel by award-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin, translated by Jamie Chang, concerns itself with a familiar theme for Korean contemporary culture: the often sharp divide between the traditional way of life with its focus on the family to hand down wisdom and wealth, paired with obedience to authority and modern life that is more liberal, fast-paced, obsessed with money and consumerism, pitting individuals against each other as they compete for the same resources, and coming up against powers higher up whose authority is now contested.

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin