TASTES LIKE WAR: a memoir by Grace M. Cho
A finalist for the 2021 National Book Award, this memoir recounts Cho’s upbringing as a mixed-race American child of the Korean conflict. Her narrative ranges from her earliest memories to her adulthood, circling back as events in her present recall, refine & ultimately reshape her past, using food & locations as touchstones.
As Cho figures out who she is, where she came from, and who she wants to be, she also grapples with the diverging fortunes of her parents, each of whom has their own complex histories.
Though Cho relates the story of her problematic American father with some sympathy, the real focus of her story is Cho’s mother, whose journey from Korea to America is fraught with violence, displacement & shame, not to mention serious mental illness, raising compelling questions of cause and effect.
What Cho recounts is deeply human, informed by the sweep of world events as well as the chaos of emotional conflict, and it is also incredibly humane, giving voice (however incomplete, however inchoate) to Cho’s forebears. It’s clear that this author is a compassionate, thoughtful and insightful witness, using the grist of her personal history to mill a remarkably rich story.
And Cho is the best kind of truth-seeking guide, for whom even the smallest discovered detail can yield a rumination on the largest questions. (For instance, what does it say about our culture that the word “whore” is almost always a pejorative while the word “soldier” almost never is?)
I found surprising, even troubling, parallels between Cho’s family life and my own, which speaks to the role that U.S. military action in Southeast Asia has played in so many lives. I guess the give-and-take between nations makes victims of us all, such that, whatever your particular heritage, none of us is immune to history.
And yet we persist. And some of us, like Cho, fashion sublime testaments as a result.
Get TASTES LIKE WAR here: https://a.co/d/0d4TAaAY
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