(AD PR Product – With thanks to Picador for my gifted copy).When a mother allows her thirty-something daughter to move into her apartment, she wants for her what many mothers might say they want for their child: a steady income, and, even better, a good husband with a good job with whom to start a family. There are some harrowing scenes (particularly involving ageism and homophobia), so it might not be for everyone, but it’s certainly an eye-opener.

Through the relationship that slowly builds between the mother, Green, Lane and Jen comes the possibility of connection, reconciliation and understanding.Įxploring themes of family, ageing, isolation and love in all its forms, this is a story about women raising their voices against criticism and prejudice. Yet Kim’s introduction of the dementia patient, Jen’s, storyline broadens the discussion into something far more intricate and moving. At first, I thought this might be another stereotypical generational conflict which takes a rather superficial approach to representing the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Having read a lot of Korean literature which focuses on characters outcast by society, I went into Concerning My Daughter having some understanding of Korean culture, but this is the first book I’ve read which focuses heavily on the marginalisation of the LGBTQ+ community. Widowed, working a low-paid job as a carer and surrounded by a run-down house, our narrator will do anything to stop the same fate for her own daughter.

She did everything expected of her: marriage, a family, a career but still has almost nothing to show for it. Kim’s narrator lives in a perpetual state of terror, unable to let go of her ingrained beliefs in the supremacy of conventional family. Why should not having chosen a traditional life mean that your life is worth nothing at all?

Yet when the care home she works in instructs her to lower her standard of care for a dementia patient who chose her career over a husband and family, she begins to question everything. When Green loses her job teaching at the university in a case of unfair dismissal, her mother welcomes her into her home, but she never expected her daughter to turn up with her girlfriend, Lane, in tow. All Green’s mother has ever wanted for her daughter is a steady income and a good husband.

Kim hye jin about my daughter