Identity and the Self

The novel explores the individual’s ongoing search for a realized sense of self by way of the protagonist Jin Han’s first person point of view narration. At the start of the novel, Jin has just finished exhibiting a recent photography series at a New York art gallery. Now living in San Francisco with her college sweetheart and husband Philip, Jin has lost her creative motivation and drive. Even her relationship with Philip has been at a stalemate since Philip woke up “desiring a child” and thus breaking his and Jin’s pact never to start a family (6). Jin therefore finds herself at a relational, vocational, and circumstantial crossroads. Her succession of life changes in turn causes her to question who she wants to be and if her life is granting her the room to discover her authentic self.

Jin’s evolving...