Book review: "Concerning My Daughter"

[rocky41_7]

Today I finished book #11 on the "Women in Translation" rec list: Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin, translated from Korean by Jamie Chang. This book is about an a widow in her mid-70s who ends up sharing a home with her adult daughter and her daughter's partner. Her contentious relationship with her daughter pits her long-held beliefs and societal viewpoints against her love for her child; simultaneously, she struggles in her job caring for an elderly dementia patient in a nursing home.

 

The protagonist is a person who values, above all, keeping your head down and doing what's expected of you. She does not believe in standing out; she does not believe in involving yourself in other people's problems; perhaps for these reasons, she believes the only people you can ever count on are family. This is how she's lived her whole life, and she believes it was for the best. However, this mindset puts her directly in conflict with her daughter, a lesbian activist who is fighting for equal employment treatment for queer professors and teachers in the South Korean educational system. 

 

When her daughter, Green, runs out of money to pay rent after a quarrel with the university where she was lecturing, the protagonist allows Green and her partner Lane to move in, despite their fractious relationship.

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