Ooof. This one got me and it's still getting to me now. I didn't expect to have so much in common with a young woman of Korean heritage, but feelings of grief and loss are universal, and in that, we are all one and the same.
My mother died ten years ago when I was in my mid-fifties, but as Zauner observed, we are all children again when our parents are dying. Mum and I hadn't always seen eye to eye but as she declined, an unspoken truce was called, and we suddenly appreciated what we had in each other and tried to make amends. As I read through the book, I recognised the desire to demonstrate things I had learnt from her. Zauner cooked traditional Korean food for her mother and I poached haddock and cut little sandwiches for mine.
Even when you know it is coming, nothing prepares you for the death of the parent, and I think Zauner was quite masterful in describing the times both before and after her mother died. When the final breath is taken, that is not the end and although life has changed forever, in the following days, the memories crowd out the present and the world tilts on its axis.
In writing a biography there is real skill in deciding what to recount in detail, and what to pass gently over, while still retaining the flow of the narrative. Zauner gets this exactly right. There is nothing mawkish about the writing but it contains many descriptions of the little things that show that maternal love outweighs everything and does not stop when a mother dies.
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