Thank you so much @faberbooks for gifting me this poignant, thought-provoking novel exploring racial tensions between black and Korean communities in LA. I’ve never read anything on this topic before, and being in the UK I felt woefully ignorant of the events of the LA riots in 1992. But that’s no excuse and I’m hoping to read the book Cha recommends at the end at some point now (The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots if you’re interested!)

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The Latasha Harlins case is what Your House Will Pay is based on, when 16 year old Latasha was shot in the back of the head by a Korean woman in her liquor store. She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter but received no prison time. The shooting (and subsequent sentence), along with the beating of Rodney King, is thought to have sparked the LA Riots, when tensions between African-American residents and Korean-American shop-owners were at an all time high.

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Cha has created a thoughtful and sensitive fictionalised account to explore the killing and its consequent impact on both families involved. It’s told from alternating perspectives with frequent flashbacks to the riots themselves. I thought the characterisation was mostly done well, although Grace Park and her sister Miriam were both meant to be in their late 20s/early 30s and came across as being in their late teens. This may have been down to their (or mainly Grace’s) naivety but it still threw me a little.

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I really liked the 2019 parts where Cha explores how the families have coped in the 30 or so years since ‘Ava’s’ death and the riots. Responsibility, family dynamics, racism, social media, justice, forgiveness and more are all tackled here, and while I think it could have been longer to get into some topics more deeply, it’s still impactful.

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Gripping and relevant, I would definitely recommend this one, especially to readers outside the US who might not be familiar with this piece of history - it’s a good introduction despite being fiction!