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nuhafariha 's review for:
Your House Will Pay
by Steph Cha
Thank you to Harper Collins Publishers and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!
Available 28th July 2020 in paperback.
What a timely, haunting piece! I remember learning about Korean store-owner Soon Ja Du and the Black schoolchild she murdered, Latasha Harlins. I remember the divisive discussions it sparked among my Asian American classmates, the sense of unease as we all sought to distance ourselves from the racism that is present in our community.
Cha expands the narrative forward to consider their future offspring. In an almost Shakespearean drama, the characters in "Your House Will Pay" re-enact the events of that fateful day. The seeds of mistrust, doubt and racism are planted unknowingly in the minds of Grace and Miriam Park, daughters of Yvonne Park who murdered a young Black teenager, Ava. Now, as Yvonne is the subject of a targeted shooting, the daughters must come together and grapple with these poisonous trees in their past. Along the way, we see cycles of intergenerational trauma and irreparable damage caused by the system of US policing and incarceration in Korean American and Black communities.
"Your House Will Pay" is not an easy story to sit through, just like reckoning with your own racist history is not easy to sit through. Cha's unremitting yet gentle exploration of the events, her ability to show both the pain felt by Ava's family and the Parks, shows us a way forward in these tumultuous, racially charged times. Ultimately, we are all victims of a racist statehood and the only way to move forward is to dismantle it within ourselves, our communities and, eventually, our society.
Available 28th July 2020 in paperback.
What a timely, haunting piece! I remember learning about Korean store-owner Soon Ja Du and the Black schoolchild she murdered, Latasha Harlins. I remember the divisive discussions it sparked among my Asian American classmates, the sense of unease as we all sought to distance ourselves from the racism that is present in our community.
Cha expands the narrative forward to consider their future offspring. In an almost Shakespearean drama, the characters in "Your House Will Pay" re-enact the events of that fateful day. The seeds of mistrust, doubt and racism are planted unknowingly in the minds of Grace and Miriam Park, daughters of Yvonne Park who murdered a young Black teenager, Ava. Now, as Yvonne is the subject of a targeted shooting, the daughters must come together and grapple with these poisonous trees in their past. Along the way, we see cycles of intergenerational trauma and irreparable damage caused by the system of US policing and incarceration in Korean American and Black communities.
"Your House Will Pay" is not an easy story to sit through, just like reckoning with your own racist history is not easy to sit through. Cha's unremitting yet gentle exploration of the events, her ability to show both the pain felt by Ava's family and the Parks, shows us a way forward in these tumultuous, racially charged times. Ultimately, we are all victims of a racist statehood and the only way to move forward is to dismantle it within ourselves, our communities and, eventually, our society.