I Leave it Up to You, by Jinwoo Chong

[Ulysses]

I Leave it Up to You
By Jinwoo Chong
Ballantine Books, 2025
Five stars

This is a remarkable book. Beautifully written, deceptively simple (but really not simple). Hilarious and heartbreaking, it is ultimately optimistic because it is about the fragility—and the indestructibility—of love. It is also set in New Jersey, which has been my home for the last 45 years. In particular, it is set in Fort Lee, famous for its enormous and diverse Asian communities. The people in question are Korean, but with roots in Japan. (If you want to know more about that, read the book or watch the series “Pachinko.”)

“I Leave it Up to You” is the story of a gay thirty-year-old Korean American man who suddenly wakes up after being in a coma for nearly two years. However, after the first few chapters, the coma becomes sort of background. What really matters is Jack Jr.’s family.

The leitmotif of the book is sushi, and in particular omakase, a kind of multi-course sushi meal that represents the pinnacle of the sushi experience. I have only experienced this myself once, at a top-shelf sushi restaurant in Osaka. The key to the experience is not just all the varieties of raw fish, each served in a single-bite portion, but the fact that the sushi chef makes each piece for you as you sit at the counter and watch. The Japanese word omakase translates into “I leave it up to you.”

I can’t really tell you any more, and feel I’ve already spoiled one of my favorite “ah-ha” moments by explaining the title (it is never explained in the book itself). I will add two details: at the moment Jack Jr. wakes up, he has not seen his family in ten years. The year is 2021—in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic that changed all of our lives.

Jinwoo Chong has not given us easy characters, and yet I loved them all as I got to know them. Family love is not necessarily easy. Anyone with a family knows that. Jack Jr. is not always the most appealing guy (but you want him to be). I think the only character I loved instantly and always in the book was Jack Jr.’s teenaged nephew Juno. Every character is drawn, and then painted, and then rendered in three dimensions with the sort of passion that only a great writer can achieve.

This book will stay with me a long time. I’d love to see it made into a streaming series, because imagining such an ensemble cast gives me the shivers. Do read it. You don’t have to have any interest in sushi to get immersed in the emotional narrative that Chong offers.