In her deeply moving and personal memoir, Michelle Zauner chronicles her experience with grief, loss and identity following the death of her mother.
Every page of Crying in H Mart is imbued with a raw sense of emotion and loss as Zauner narrates her difficult and complex relationship with her late mother. Throughout the memoir, Zauner reflects on their tumultuous relationship; the two seemed to be frequently in opposition to each other, constantly in disagreements and arguments. As Zauner reached adolescence, this tension continued to increase, even into the early years of Zauner’s adulthood.
Only when Zauner receives the news of her mother’s diagnosis does she begin to realise just how much her mother was present in all aspects of her life, even when they were separated. As Zauner begins to take care of her mother and their roles reverse, Zauner contemplates both her own life and her mother’s. Here, the memoir delves into a deeply reminiscent tone, with the candid prose and touching fragments of dialogue making for an emotional reading experience. On her mother’s love, Zauner writes: ‘Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime.’
The memoir also intertwines themes of identity and belonging. As a Korean-American, Zauner chronicles her clashes with her identity, from struggling to fit in with her classmates at school to feeling detached from her extended family during visits to Seoul. She reflects on her identity, saying that it was ‘[s]omething that was always in the hands of other people to be given and never my own to take, to decide which side I was on, whom I was allowed to align with. I could never be of both worlds, only half in and half out, waiting to be ejected at will by someone with greater claim than me. Someone whole.’
Indubitably, the notion of food connects all of the book’s themes. H Mart is a place where Zauner can not only feel closer and connected with her mother, but also unite with the Korean aspect of her identity. Beautiful descriptions of cooking and food are dispersed throughout the pages of Crying in H Mart; ‘Food was how my mother expressed her love. No matter how critical or cruel she could seem—constantly pushing me to meet her intractable expectations—I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them.’
On the whole, Crying in H Mart has made me realise that non-fiction can be just as poignant and evocative as fiction. Michelle Zauner’s writing has left an indelible impression on my mind.