Young Park

Young Park is the novel's narrator, a character who seems to be based on the author himself, Sang Young Park. The novel is divided into four parts and encompasses various times in Young's life from age 20 through his mid-30s. He is a gay man living in Seoul, South Korea, and he is subjected to homophobic attitudes by multiple people he encounters, both strangers and loved ones. He recalls being called a gay slur by some nurses at a health clinic, for example, and his own mother sent him away to a mental hospital when she caught him kissing another boy as a teenager. In Part II, Young struggles to find closure and healing as he cares for his terminally ill mother, ultimately discovering that he has more in common with her than he might have supposed.

Over the course of the novel, the author charts a...