The Last Story of Mina Lee

Nancy Jooyoun Kim 2020

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined
Korean American immigration mother grief

Our Take

Margot returns to LA to find her Korean immigrant mother dead, her apartment undisturbed, her death unexplained. The mystery is also an excavation — Mina's story, withheld from her daughter, is the other half of the novel. Kim writes mother-daughter silence as the Korean American condition: what is not said because there is no language that crosses both worlds.

This page contains affiliate links. If you buy a book through one of these links, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Full disclosure →