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A Good Family
This collection of eight stories cynical and sympathetic by turns represents the author's attempt to document and understand the conflicts, resentments, hatreds, and anxieties of contemporary family life. The title story depicts a mother's busy day playing numerous roles ashamed, fearless, or humble depending on which member of her family she's tending to. In "The Privacy of My Father," a daughter tracks her father to Hong Kong in order to spy on what she thinks is an illicit affair. All in all, says Seo Hajin, family means deception--but these masks aren't so easily removed."
213 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 22, 2020
"I tend to prefer slightly boring writers. Their work somehow resembles 'life' more closely" (p. 136)
I would have to agree, and I think this is one of the main reasons why I enjoyed this collection so much. I felt like I was being transported to various corners of Seoul and seeing people live their lives.
My favorites were probably "Dad's Private Life", "Where is Everyone Going?" and "The Interview".
***SPOILERS BELOW***
Since Goodreads doesn't provide enough space to keep personal notes, I will write brief synopses here:
What Grows out of Sadness: A lady gets diagnosed with cancer. Over time we realize she has been keeping so many of her feelings and emotions bottled up inside her, and it's implied this may have been a cause.
Dad's Private Life: A daughter and her friend follow a dad and a mysterious "Lady Unidentified" to and around Hong Kong.
A Good Family:Through the various undertakings during the day, we realize how much a mother is the strength and backbone of her family.
Where is Everyone Going: A doctor has tumors, which are most likely malignant. He settles his affairs, with close family members coming to terms with their emotions. He then leaves town to see "someone", and on the way receives a phone call telling him the tumors were benign after all.
The interview: A novice author is interviewing a well-known author, and she has prepared meticulously for this interview, since the author is someone she admires very much. However, there seems to be an ulterior motive.
Sugar or Salt: A woman visits her friend K abroad (in the US), and they reminisce, and we realize what went on behind the scenes, including with K's ex-husband.
Who are you?: An author visits her town's bookstore, which is about to be demolished, and sees many copies of her book there, which she had dedicated to K. She then goes on a search for him. He seems to have been her assistant/inspiration/muse/motivator.
The Little Thing: A woman in a company denounces a superior for sexual harassment. Things aren't as clear-cut as you would think. In the end the perpetrator seems to wish to understand, but doesn't, and is forced to resign, while all the other men remain oblivious. The woman is moved to another department.
I would have to agree, and I think this is one of the main reasons why I enjoyed this collection so much. I felt like I was being transported to various corners of Seoul and seeing people live their lives.
My favorites were probably "Dad's Private Life", "Where is Everyone Going?" and "The Interview".
***SPOILERS BELOW***
Since Goodreads doesn't provide enough space to keep personal notes, I will write brief synopses here:
What Grows out of Sadness: A lady gets diagnosed with cancer. Over time we realize she has been keeping so many of her feelings and emotions bottled up inside her, and it's implied this may have been a cause.
Dad's Private Life: A daughter and her friend follow a dad and a mysterious "Lady Unidentified" to and around Hong Kong.
A Good Family:Through the various undertakings during the day, we realize how much a mother is the strength and backbone of her family.
Where is Everyone Going: A doctor has tumors, which are most likely malignant. He settles his affairs, with close family members coming to terms with their emotions. He then leaves town to see "someone", and on the way receives a phone call telling him the tumors were benign after all.
The interview: A novice author is interviewing a well-known author, and she has prepared meticulously for this interview, since the author is someone she admires very much. However, there seems to be an ulterior motive.
Sugar or Salt: A woman visits her friend K abroad (in the US), and they reminisce, and we realize what went on behind the scenes, including with K's ex-husband.
Who are you?: An author visits her town's bookstore, which is about to be demolished, and sees many copies of her book there, which she had dedicated to K. She then goes on a search for him. He seems to have been her assistant/inspiration/muse/motivator.
The Little Thing: A woman in a company denounces a superior for sexual harassment. Things aren't as clear-cut as you would think. In the end the perpetrator seems to wish to understand, but doesn't, and is forced to resign, while all the other men remain oblivious. The woman is moved to another department.
August 4, 2025
I’ve been (very) slowly making my way through the Library of Korean Literature series, published by Dalkey Archive Press, and on a recent trip to the university library, I picked up another one to try. Seo Hajin’s A Good Family (translated by Ally H. Hwang and Amy C. Smith) is a collection of eight stories, each examining a period in the life of a certain person. Some are young, some a bit older, some are rich, some not quite so well-off, but all of them are weighed down by problems, both major and minor but persistent.
The world of work is a common theme in Korean dramas and literature, and there are a couple of examples of that topic here. ‘The Little Thing’ follows a sexual harassment case that’s perhaps not quite as black-and-white as first appears, and with Internal Affairs on the case, the goal is less to find the truth than to minimise any damage. The story also provides an interesting look at those on the periphery, with a fair few sexist comments and a lack of support from those who should be on the woman’s side.
Another work issue features in ‘A Good Family’, in which a woman confronts a man who’s making her husband’s life difficult. What stands out here, though, is everything that’s going on away from the main strand, with the woman fitting her mission in between apologising for her son’s misbehaviour and caring for her daughter and mother. In modern South Korea, it seems, a woman must play many roles, often at the same time…
Another theme covered in the collection is infidelity. In ‘Dad’s Private Life’, a young woman follows her father to Hong Kong to check whether he’s having an affair (which seems rather extreme!). Meanwhile, ‘Sugar or Salt’ sees a woman visiting an old friend in the US, with a phone call at her hotel before she sets off for their meeting disturbing her:
“I’m near your hotel. Just a short visit would be enough,” he said, finally breaking the silence, but I neither responded nor hung up.
‘Sugar or Salt’, p.147 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015)
Eventually she does hang up, but the call is a bad omen for the trip, with a dark secret casting a shadow over their reunion.
Several of the stories start in one way but very quickly take a different direction. A good example of this is ‘Where is Everyone Going?’, in which an arrogant doctor is caught up in a car crash, only to discover that life as he knows it might be over for good. Cleverly, the focus here is on how the bad news brings life and relationships into focus, with people forced to face up to their true feelings.
In a similar vein, the opening piece ‘What Grows out of Sadness’, perhaps one of the most successful stories here, has a woman suddenly confronted with a cancer diagnosis, which soon becomes a death sentence:
Time passed slowly. During the days of chemotherapy, as she wrestled with nausea, she felt like time stopped. Her once clear skin was turning yellow, and she developed spots under her nails that looked like the teeth of a comb.
‘What Grows out of Sadness’, pp.23/4
Knowing that she only has a short time to live leads the woman to reflect on her life, and it doesn’t make for happy memories. This one’s not exactly pleasant reading, but it’s well done, the reader following the patient from the initial diagnosis to her premature death, with those around her struggling to come to terms with the impending loss of the heart of their family.
Writers often enjoy writing about writing, so it will come as little surprise to see a couple of the stories here focusing on author life. In ‘Who Are You?’, a writer discovers signed copies of her own work at a second-hand bookshop, which has her scrambling to find the man she signed them for. By contrast, ‘The Interview’ sees a minor writer chosen to interview a more famous colleague, and while she’s been looking forward to the day, it turns out to be a bit of a flop. A word to the wise, kids – never meet your heroes…
Hwang and Smith have generally done a good job here, but one thing that’s interesting to look at is their approach from 2015 towards Korean words. A fair number have been kept, in italics, and for most they’ve provided footnotes. That’s fair enough for the most part, but tteokbokki, kimbap and kimchi? I think we can agree that things have come a long way in ten years 😉
A Good Family is enjoyable enough, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favourite books in the series, and certainly not likely to stand out from the (similarly-liveried) pack – and on that note, it’s probably time, once again, to take a gentle swipe at the poor editing in this series. There are a fair few typos inside, but that’s not the main issue here. On the back-cover blurb, which shouldn’t be hard to check, the first sentence reads “This collections of eight stories…”. Worse is to come, though. You see in the translator bios, we learn that Hwang is (was) completing a book of her own. The topic? “Virginia Wolf”. On that note, I’ll leave you all for today – I’m just happy there’s no full moon…
The world of work is a common theme in Korean dramas and literature, and there are a couple of examples of that topic here. ‘The Little Thing’ follows a sexual harassment case that’s perhaps not quite as black-and-white as first appears, and with Internal Affairs on the case, the goal is less to find the truth than to minimise any damage. The story also provides an interesting look at those on the periphery, with a fair few sexist comments and a lack of support from those who should be on the woman’s side.
Another work issue features in ‘A Good Family’, in which a woman confronts a man who’s making her husband’s life difficult. What stands out here, though, is everything that’s going on away from the main strand, with the woman fitting her mission in between apologising for her son’s misbehaviour and caring for her daughter and mother. In modern South Korea, it seems, a woman must play many roles, often at the same time…
Another theme covered in the collection is infidelity. In ‘Dad’s Private Life’, a young woman follows her father to Hong Kong to check whether he’s having an affair (which seems rather extreme!). Meanwhile, ‘Sugar or Salt’ sees a woman visiting an old friend in the US, with a phone call at her hotel before she sets off for their meeting disturbing her:
“I’m near your hotel. Just a short visit would be enough,” he said, finally breaking the silence, but I neither responded nor hung up.
‘Sugar or Salt’, p.147 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015)
Eventually she does hang up, but the call is a bad omen for the trip, with a dark secret casting a shadow over their reunion.
Several of the stories start in one way but very quickly take a different direction. A good example of this is ‘Where is Everyone Going?’, in which an arrogant doctor is caught up in a car crash, only to discover that life as he knows it might be over for good. Cleverly, the focus here is on how the bad news brings life and relationships into focus, with people forced to face up to their true feelings.
In a similar vein, the opening piece ‘What Grows out of Sadness’, perhaps one of the most successful stories here, has a woman suddenly confronted with a cancer diagnosis, which soon becomes a death sentence:
Time passed slowly. During the days of chemotherapy, as she wrestled with nausea, she felt like time stopped. Her once clear skin was turning yellow, and she developed spots under her nails that looked like the teeth of a comb.
‘What Grows out of Sadness’, pp.23/4
Knowing that she only has a short time to live leads the woman to reflect on her life, and it doesn’t make for happy memories. This one’s not exactly pleasant reading, but it’s well done, the reader following the patient from the initial diagnosis to her premature death, with those around her struggling to come to terms with the impending loss of the heart of their family.
Writers often enjoy writing about writing, so it will come as little surprise to see a couple of the stories here focusing on author life. In ‘Who Are You?’, a writer discovers signed copies of her own work at a second-hand bookshop, which has her scrambling to find the man she signed them for. By contrast, ‘The Interview’ sees a minor writer chosen to interview a more famous colleague, and while she’s been looking forward to the day, it turns out to be a bit of a flop. A word to the wise, kids – never meet your heroes…
Hwang and Smith have generally done a good job here, but one thing that’s interesting to look at is their approach from 2015 towards Korean words. A fair number have been kept, in italics, and for most they’ve provided footnotes. That’s fair enough for the most part, but tteokbokki, kimbap and kimchi? I think we can agree that things have come a long way in ten years 😉
A Good Family is enjoyable enough, but I wouldn’t say it’s one of my favourite books in the series, and certainly not likely to stand out from the (similarly-liveried) pack – and on that note, it’s probably time, once again, to take a gentle swipe at the poor editing in this series. There are a fair few typos inside, but that’s not the main issue here. On the back-cover blurb, which shouldn’t be hard to check, the first sentence reads “This collections of eight stories…”. Worse is to come, though. You see in the translator bios, we learn that Hwang is (was) completing a book of her own. The topic? “Virginia Wolf”. On that note, I’ll leave you all for today – I’m just happy there’s no full moon…
July 18, 2021
A Good Family is a collection of 8 short stories by Seo Hajin. The stories tend to dwell so much on the beginning but have abrupt ends, as if the author suddenly thought she had to end the stories after certain pages. Most of the stories have similar themes of family and life as a writer.
Some of the noticeable stories are:
1. What Grows out of Sadness, which reminds me of a Korean drama I watch, the Most Beautiful Goodbye. A housewife who has devoted her life to her family will always be taken for granted. Her presence will only be appreciated with her absence.
2. Dad's Private Life, which follows a daughter and her best friend stalking his father to Hong Kong with her suspected affair. The story however did not explicitly tell in the end what happened to the father or if it was in fact an affair.
3. The Interview, where a writer interviewed her favourite author. The story had a turn of event when the writer found out in the end why her favourite author had an unexpected interest in her.
'She liked this place that was indifferent to the principles of competition and compensation, as if they were irrelevant to life, the space like a tomb of books, full of dusty books, and she liked the owner who usually wouldn't even greet you when you walked in. She tended to keep friendly or talkative people at a distance.'
Some of the noticeable stories are:
1. What Grows out of Sadness, which reminds me of a Korean drama I watch, the Most Beautiful Goodbye. A housewife who has devoted her life to her family will always be taken for granted. Her presence will only be appreciated with her absence.
2. Dad's Private Life, which follows a daughter and her best friend stalking his father to Hong Kong with her suspected affair. The story however did not explicitly tell in the end what happened to the father or if it was in fact an affair.
3. The Interview, where a writer interviewed her favourite author. The story had a turn of event when the writer found out in the end why her favourite author had an unexpected interest in her.
'She liked this place that was indifferent to the principles of competition and compensation, as if they were irrelevant to life, the space like a tomb of books, full of dusty books, and she liked the owner who usually wouldn't even greet you when you walked in. She tended to keep friendly or talkative people at a distance.'
October 25, 2020
Each story points in a direction but never arrives anywhere. Or else it relies on relationships without taking the time to build them. Either way: disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews