From the author of All You Can Ever Know comes a memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost.
In her clear, concise prose, Chung makes the personal political, tackling everything from America’s crushingly unjust health care system to the country’s gauzy assumptions about adoption, a practice that is itself rooted in economic inequality. Her observations are particularly timely at a moment when life expectancy in the United States is falling ... Chung writes with aching and transcendent longing — for a past she never had; for her flawed home state; and for a more compassionate future ... With this work, Chung offers a luminous addition to the literature of loss.
Moving ... Both of her adoptive parents died within two years of each other. In this intimate memoir, she explores this difficult emotional terrain while also delivering a powerful social commentary that poses vital questions on access to medical care and the meaning of home and family ... Chung’s deeply personal story also highlights the shortcomings of health care in America ... Powerful.
She focuses on the tenuousness of her family's financial resources and access to health care while acknowledging the commonality of her story ... The narrative moves logically and emotionally, laying out what the reader needs even when jumping across generations ... The associations work naturally, adding the necessary historical connections or the wisdom of hindsight while also exposing the echoes and lessons lost or learned ... Chung candidly brings readers into her life like they are old friends. There is an ease in her manner of storytelling, and because of that there is joy in each familial connection and a great deal of pain when things go awry.
