#2: "When my name was Keoko" by Linda Sue Park

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When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park (Random House, 2002)

This is the first beneficiary of my "prioritised reading program" in view of my upcoming departure from WHS. It's been on my to-read list for a long time: it was probably one of the first to be added, back when I was compiling my 50books_poc lists.

It tells the story of a family in Korea during the Japanese occupation, modelled on the family of the author's parents. When the government orders that all Koreans are to take a Japanese name, Sun-hee is renamed Keoko. And yet the family form their Japanese names very carefully, resisting the government even while they follow the law. Further, the narrative only ever refers to Sun-hee, her brother Tae-yul, and the other family members by their Korean names. The Japanese name is only used in the mouth of Japanese characters, particularly officials.

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3. Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Wench

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3. Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Wench

Whew, this is a depressing book. But well worth reading; the characters are all very believable and engaging, and the situation is compelling. It's a novel, but one based on a real-life situation: Tawawa House, a popular summer resort in the early and middle 1800s, located in Ohio but frequented by rich men from southern states. The story focuses on four black women, all slaves, and all brought by their owners to Tawawa House over repeated summers. Because, see, Tawawa House has a particular reason for being popular: it's a place where slave-owners can bring their black mistresses, leaving their wives behind.

This is a hard book to describe, because there's not much of a plot; most of what changes over the course of the novel is the slow shifts in Lizzy's (the main character) attitude toward her life and the other people in it. Wench is excellent at describing the tangled situation she and the other women find themselves in, their feelings about each other, other people back home on their plantations, and finding themselves in Ohio- a free state- while still being a slave. Each of the four women has differing attitudes towards their men, ranging from Lizzy (the main character), who really believes her owner loves her and her children, to Mawu, who would kill her owner given the chance. Lizzy's efforts to make a better life for her children shape her character and result in some of the most heart-breaking scenes in the book, while her time in Ohio tempts her to leave them behind and make an escape attempt.

Not a fun book, but an excellent one. I recommend it.