Katherine Min, Secondhand World

Secondhand World

Katherine Min

Knopf, October 2006, $23.00

ISBN: 0397263444

In 1976, just a few months from graduating high school, eighteen year old Isadora "Isa" Myung Hee Sohn spends ninety-five days in the pediatric burn unit at Tri-State Medical Center in Albany, New York. The fire that burned thirty per cent of her body killed her Korean born parents.

As she slowly healed, mostly in isolation, the lone survivor of the ordeal tries to make sense out of the illogical. Isa reflects back on the family interrelationships to ascertain why one of her parents set the blaze; she assumes that her unemotional father did the deed out of outrage of being cuckolded. Isa considers that the final spin downward started when she overtly revolted against her father's dictatorial rule, as is the custom in Korea, but not as authoritarian in America. She befriended Rachel, admiring the chaos of her pal's family, and she agreed to run away with Hero, but was caught. Out of ire, she informed her dad that she caught mom kissing a professor; ergo that is why she assumes her father lit the deadly fire. Now she has his journal, which should verify what she believes.

SECONDHAND WORLD is a deep look at individual and cultural values, as a first generation hyphenated American sees things quite differently than their born in the United States offspring. The melting pot is assimilation that causes generational conflict between the old and new ways. Isa is a fascinating protagonist, as she learns to survive the pain, the loneliness, and the ordeal as much as she adapted to being Americanized, while her parents, especially her father is Korean. It is interesting that her parents are never fully developed on their own, as they are only seen through the filter of how Isa perceives them. Katherine Min provides a deep family drama that focuses on the customs of immigrants compared with the Americanization of their children.