Secondhand World [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Katherine Min (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2006

A brilliant novel from an exciting new writer.

Isadora Myung Hee Sohn—Isa—worships her mother, an exceptional beauty, born in Seoul and sheltered in a harem of sisters inside the wealthy family’s compound. Isa’s father, a scientist and professor, an orphan, is haunted by the war in which he served as a South Korean soldier and by a painful secret that he keeps from his wife. Still mourning the death of Isa’s younger brother, Stephen, her parents are traditional enough to prize their dead son over their living daughter; to them, Isa only half exists.

But unlike many Asian American daughters, Isa is neither meek nor a quiet victim of tradition. Despite her parents’ success and sophistication—they’ve achieved the American dream—she repudiates their values, embarks on her own sexual education, and runs away with an albino boy, Hero. At the same time, Isa suspects that despite her mother’s strict adherence to Korean traditional values, she is involved with another man, and Isa determines to make the affair known. What begins as a child’s unthinking fury at her mother soon leads to more deadly consequences.

A daring, haunting, inspired debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Isolation pervades Min's haunting debut, a depiction of a tragedy-beset Korean-American family living in upstate New York during the aftermath of the Korean War. As the book opens, Isadora (Isa) Myung Hee Sohn, 18, has just spent 95 days on a pediatric burn unit in Albany, N.Y., following a fire that destroyed her house and killed her parents. The backstory—a swirling, textured and beautifully detailed web of perception that records a divided life—comprises the rest of the novel. Isa's mother is a beauty from a wealthy family in Seoul; her father is a former South Korean soldier, now a rigid science professor. Brother Stephen died in an accident as a toddler; her parents' extreme grief and subsequent neglect leave Isa herself feeling "insubstantial, a transparency that hung like a scrim between them and the child they had lost." The teenage Isa—angst-ridden, disaffected and subject to racial prejudice at school—escapes into the arms of an albino outsider named "Hero" in a sequence that doesn't fit. But when Isa finds out that her mother is having an affair, her ensuing actions destroy her parents' carefully constructed semblance of happily married life. The plot lurches and meanders, but Min's rendering of an outsider family's tight-knit alienation is spot-on. (Oct.)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Isadora Myung Hee Sohn, known as Isa, is caught between two cultures. Her Korean-born parents, who have achieved a measure of success in the United States, disagree on what to call her when she is born. Her mother, an aspiring dancer, wishes to name her after Isadora Duncan. Her father insists that she retain the vestiges of her heritage. She embraces American life, but resists her mother's urgings to get an eyelid operation popular with Asian women. When her younger brother is killed in a freak accident, she struggles with the sense that her traditional parents value their dead son more than their living daughter. Isa falls in love with Hero, an albino boy at her high school, and realizes that she is attracted to him because he, too, is different. He introduces her to sex and convinces her to travel with him to California. But, when Isa suspects her mother of being involved with another man, she finds herself bound by the norms of her culture. In her fury, she determines to reveal the affair, with disastrous results. Only later does Isa understand how everyone is bound by those who precede them. Min poignantly captures the dilemma of second-generation Americans as they try to find a place in their universe, but she also tells of a quest for self-discovery, which is universal.–Pat Bangs, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition. states edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307263444
• ISBN-13: 978-0307263445
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 1.3 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,820,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Katherine Min was born in Champagne, Illinois, and grew up near Albany, NY. An incorrigible liar as a child, she made the logical transition to fiction writing. Her novel, SECONDHAND WORLD, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 2006. She was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Bingham Award for "an exceptionally talented writer whose debut work represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise."

Min currently teaches at the University of North Carolina in Asheville. She is working on her second novel, THE FETISHIST, about Asian fetishism in the world of classical music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling in its emotional truth, November 2, 2006

By 

JoAnne (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Secondhand World (Hardcover)

With a writing style that manages to be both spare and lyrical, Katherine Min creates a completely believable 1970s world in which, Isa, her Korean-American teenage protagonist, struggles with issues of identity, isolation, first love and sexuality, in the context of a family that has already been torn apart by great loss. In short, exquisitely drawn chapters, each character, even minor ones, become so real in their flawed humanity that they are all missed when the book is over. The relationship between Isa and her emotionally distant father is particularly complex, compelling and ultimately heartbreaking. The climax of the book, while startling feels absolutely right and its subsequent unfolding reveals great depth of insight and emotional truth. This is a remarkable debut novel and Katherine Min is definitely a writer to watch.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Even a Windstorm Could Keep Me From Finishing . . . ., December 18, 2006

By 

happyharriston (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Secondhand World (Hardcover)

Secondhand World opens with a quote from the Orpheus Variations: "Of all the tricks of memory, the cruelest / Is accuracy." This sentiment is, I believe, the key to appreciating the savage beauty of this novel. The world that Isadora Myung Hee Sohn inhabits during her senior year in high school pulsates with an energy that is just beyond our capacity to understand. The minutiae of what is seen and felt every day becomes ominous not because of what happens, but because of what is observed.

There is no sepia-toned sentimentality. Isa's sloppy sexual awakening, her righteousness about her parents' flaws, the distance that grows between her and her closest friends from sharing too great a level of intimacy---the narrator bridges the gaps in our selective memories, reminding us of how painful and wondrous life at that age truly is.

The seemingly simple, layered narrative; the fires that bookend the pregnant silences in Isa's household; the irreversible consequences of being human----a person could reflect endlessly on the images, the language, and the emotional depth of this novel. How is it that we survivors (all of us) can fail to see or fail to understand even those closest to us? How can the fleeting and mundane make life sublime? This is not a plot-driven novel, yet it is almost impossible to put down.

Seattle was recently pummeled by 70 mph winds that brought down trees and power lines. Our lights went out at midnight, when I still had twenty pages left to go. I scrambled around for the flashlight so that I could finish the novel, ignoring the howling wind, the flapping of a neighbor's roof, and a passing emergency vehicle until I was done. Then I lay awake thinking not about the dipping temperature but about the story.

Secondhand World is a remarkable novel. I highly recommend it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Secondhand World Review, October 14, 2006

By 

Lara L. Croft - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Secondhand World (Hardcover)

I finished this book in one day because I was too fascinated to put it down. Its plot is unpredictable and improbable but utterly convincing, due to an unforgettable ensemble of lovable and nuanced characters. Isa is an engaging and interesting heroine, both unique and easy to relate to. The writing is fluid and accessible, the themes explored universal and provocative. I can't believe this is a first novel. It has a permanent home on my "favorite book" shelf and I'm already eager for Min's next work.