The Mountain

Starred review from June 19, 2017
The second collection from Yoon (Once the Shore) is composed of six quiet, precisely told short stories bound by the longing for meaning and connection embodied by its mostly migrant protagonists, each of whom has suffered either direct or indirect trauma from wars fought by previous generations. These stories span multiple continents and time periods to arrive at human truths about how greatly our lives are affected and influenced by our shared histories. In “A Willow and the Moon,” a man returns after serving in World War II to an abandoned sanatorium in the Hudson Valley where his mother had volunteered when he was a child, ultimately seeking answers to the mysteries of his family’s past. In “Still a Fire,” a young man named Mikel, living in the shantytowns of northern France in the destruction left behind after World War II, suffers a terrible tragedy and is cared for by a morphine-addicted nurse on her own search for meaning after having served with the Red Cross during the war years. And in the title story, a bleakly futuristic vision of East Asia, a young woman returns home to China from Korea, working in a sweatshop producing cameras while also reckoning with her own traumatic past and the devastation it wreaks in the present. These characters are often foreign in some way to the places in which they find themselves, and Yoon expertly interrogates the meaning of nationhood and the universality of the migrant experience. Most often the stories are structured as montages of inner experience; moments of connection are the sparks that ignite these otherwise meditative, reflective narratives. The result is a spectacular display of intelligence and feeling. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency.

Starred review from June 15, 2017
Tender, tinder-dry stories about lonely people making their ways through this life.Yoon (Snow Hunters, 2013, etc.) created a minimalist story of astonishing austerity in his debut novel and largely continues in that vein with his new collection of sad stories. In the opener, "A Willow and the Moon," an orphaned woman who grew up in a sanitarium in the Hudson Valley tells the story of her coming-of-age, her father's abandonment of her, and a secret her mother nearly took to the grave. "Still a Fire" is a dual portrait of Mikel, a young man trying to survive in a European shantytown just after World War II, and Karine, the morphine-addicted nurse he meets after he is injured by a stray land mine. In "Galicia," devoted wife Antje temporarily and impulsively leaves her husband to venture through the Iberian Peninsula with Felix, a handsome young man she meets on a train platform. "Vladivostok Station" is set in Russia and follows Misha, a young man who meets a childhood friend and subsequently reconnects with his father. In the title story, a young Chinese woman named Faye is persuaded by a stranger to return home to Shanghai, with very mixed results. In the finale, "Milner Field," we get another travelogue about a divorcee and his beloved daughter, but one that mixes in tiny, heartbreaking moments of mortal tragedy. Yoon's stories are never melodramatic; most of the time nothing much happens, really. But it's rare to find a writer this patient, one willing to let the stories breathe and play out in their own time. Despite his literary austerity, Yoon's dazzling use of wordplay, pacing, and the quiet authenticity of his characters to instill emotion in his audience makes him one of the most evocative writers working today. Six little mysteries that quietly capture the breadth of the human experience.

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June 15, 2017

Loss and longing cause the men and women in Yoon's (Once the Shore; Snow Hunters) second collection to move, and often keep moving, sometimes in search of sanctuary, other times seeking escape. A doctor returns from war to his childhood home where his mother died; damaged strangers briefly share comfort; the loss of a baby disintegrates a couple's marriage; childhood friends become uncertain of their relationship as adults; an international migrant searches for connection; and a father devotedly follows his peripatetic daughter through the decades. Intertwined with recurring images of adversity and trauma--lost limbs, overwhelming deprivation, irreparable disconnects--are moments of purest joy. Hands tenderly hold another's face, a father's discovery of a missive scribbled in the margins of an already read book sent by his prodigal child. Crisscrossing the globe from New York's Hudson River to Shanghai, Sakhalin Island, Incheon, rural England, and Spain, Yoon proves himself a literary alchemist, transforming tragedy into beauty with deft reminders of our universal connections. VERDICT Joining such luminaries as Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz, and Alice Munro, Yoon has undoubtedly earned membership in the exclusive coterie of today's finest writers of the short form. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

Yoon's Once the Shore was a New York Times Notable Book and NPR Best Debut that won its author National Book Foundation 5 under 35 status, while Snow Hunters won the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award. So smart readers will want this linked collection of short stories featuring characters worldwide left rootless and uncertain by their painful pasts, like the morphine-addicted nurse who stumbles through a ruined French countryside, looking for purpose.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.