The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Tuesday at 5:40 pm my daughter, Charlotte, called me from Atlanta and said, “The app on my phone just sent me an alert that a man has shot several women at a spa just a few miles from my apartment.” Now this is the daughter who survived a military coup in Ethiopia, so I do not routinely worry about her safety, but this news made me pause. I quickly googled the developing story in Atlanta and discovered the majority of victims shot by the 21-year-old man were, in fact, women of Asian descent. This was not just a white man who had had a “bad day,” but rather this spree had all the markings of a calculated hate crime. In response to the shootings, my friend Broadway director Jerry Mitchell quoted Martin Luther King, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” How do we react to this horrific crime?  Here are some suggestions from The Skimm: Report hate crimes to Stop AAPI Hate, educate yourself on the history of discrimination, support AAPI businesses, get involved at your work, or in your community, to support diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. I would also suggest reading more books by Asian authors. “The Last Story of Mina Lee” is a haunting mother-daughter story. The story begins on the day that 26-year-old Margot Lee finds her mother dead on the floor of her apartment in L.A.’s Koreatown. The death is suspicious, and leaves Margot wanting answers. She must comb through her mother’s early life in America, as a Korean War orphan and undocumented immigrant, who stocked shelves at a local supermarket. Margot discovers that her mother was hiding a secret love story that Mina was never able to share with Margot. The novel weaves together the two stories of the mother and daughter who both fought for hope and love, in the face of great grief and loss. Suspenseful, moving and timely, this book is an important examination of the Korean- American experience. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nancy Jooyoun Kim is a graduate of UCLA and the University of Washington, Seattle. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, NPR/PRI's Selected Shorts, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, Asian American Writers' Workshop's The Margins, The Offing, and elsewhere. This is her debut novel. To buy this book on Amazon click here.