Journey of the Wild Geese
By Jayson Lee

• Publisher: Through Heritage Library Press, in August 2006
• Pages: 457
• Price: $24.95 (hardcover)

At more than 400 pages, this novel about Korean American pioneers isn’t for those looking for a quick read. Set after 1903, when the first large wave of Koreans settled in the United States, Journey of the Wild Geese follows immigrant Eugene Park and his family as they roam through Hawaii’s sugar plantations to farmlands in California and Utah on a quest for a better life. Writer Jayson Lee, who was influenced by Russian author Leo Tolstoy as a youth in Korea, makes good use of the length, with storytelling that goes into intricate detail and provides lush imagery of the family’s cross-country travels. Lee also creates interesting and believable characters in the protagonist and his son, who falls in love with a Japanese woman eventually sent to a World War II interment camp. “I felt so compelled to do something for our pioneers and for our second-generation Koreans. They had to know their history in the U.S.,” said Lee, who was inspired to write the book after attending a memorial service honoring the early Korean Americans in California’s Central Valley. “When we know our history, we will become better prepared to face challenges as a people. No tree can survive without roots.”

The Queen of Tears
By Chris McKinney

• Publisher: Mutual Publishing, in June 2006
• Pages: 316
• Price: $7.95 (paperback)

Deemed by the Hawaii press as “the most important young writer” in the state today, Chris McKinney’s latest novel is satiated with the melodrama of a Korean soap opera. The family saga centers on a former Korean movie star, Soong Nan Lee, and her dysfunctional children. The eldest is stuck in a loveless marriage, the middle child is about to marry a stripper, and the youngest is about to drop out from Berkeley and move in with a drug dealer. Told from various voices and moving back and forth from present-day Hawaii to 1950s Seoul — where a young, orphaned Soong Nan catches the attention of a well-to-do man who trains her to be an actress — The Queen of Tears is filled with tragedy and heartbreak. McKinney, who also authored Bolohead Row and The Tattoo, loosely based The Queen of Tears on his maternal grandmother, actress My-ryung Cho. He wrote this book because he “was trying to investigate [his] Korean roots,” which he felt like he lost after his mother remarried and his stepfather’s habits superseded her Korean ways.

The Staggering Depths of Blissfulness
By Jhay Kay

• Publisher: Through Lulu.com, in July 2006
• Pages: 312
• Price: $15.98 (paperback, available at lulu.com)

In The Staggering Depths of Blissfulness, first-time novelist Jhay Kay provides an answer to the modern-day problem of living in a world obsessed with materialism. The novel’s hero, Kasa, is a young Laotian who moves from his village to go to college in New York. According to Kay’s Web site, proceeds from the book’s sales will go to starting a nonprofit organization dedicated to uplifting the “element of society that dwells in the margins — the voiceless, the faceless” of the world. For the well-traveled Kay, who was born in Philadelphia and has lived in Japan and Thailand, seeing people living in abject poverty yet seeming happy with their simple lives inspired his debut. “I began to think about the virtues of such a simple life and how people sacrifice such virtues in pursuit of the American Dream, many times sacrificing their self-identity in the process,” said Kay. “Basically, out of these thoughts my novel was born.