Books & Books, Miami Book Fair and Politics and Prose present...

Books & Books is excited to join forces with our indie bookstore partners Politics and Prose for this special conversation with Marie Myung-Ok Lee.

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A sweeping, lyrical novel following a Korean immigrant pursuing the American dream who must confront the secrets of the past or risk watching the world he’s worked so hard to build come crumbling down.

Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath’s General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home.

This was the life he longed for. The so-called American dream. He immigrated from Korea after the Korean War, forced to leave his family, ancestors, village, and all that he knew behind. But his life is built on a lie. And one day, a letter arrives that threatens to expose it.

Yungman’s life is thrown into chaos—the hospital abruptly closes, his wife refuses to spend time with him, and his son is busy investing in a struggling health start-up. Yungman faces a choice—he must choose to hide his secret from his family and friends or confess and potentially lose all he’s built. He begins to question the very assumptions on which his life is built—the so-called American dream, with the abject failure of its healthcare system, patient and neighbors who perpetuate racism, a town flawed with infrastructure, and a history that doesn’t see him in it.

Toggling between the past and the present, Korea and America, Evening Hero is a sweeping, moving, darkly comic novel about a man looking back at his life and asking big questions about what is lost and what is gained when immigrants leave home for new shores.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s next novel, The Evening Hero, is forthcoming with Simon & Schuster in May 2022. Her young adult novel, Finding My Voice, is considered to be the first contemporary-set YA with an Asian protagonist. She has written for The New York Times, Slate, The Guardian, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Salon. She teaches fiction at Columbia where she is Writer in Residence. The essay series she did for Slate on treating her son with autism with cannabis was featured in Dr. Sanjay Gupta's CNN series, "Weed."

John Darnielle is the author of three best-selling novels: Wolf in White Van (2014), which was a National Book Award nominee; Universal Harvester (2017), a finalist for the Locus Award; and his most recent, Devil House, published in January, 2022. He is the writer, composer, guitarist, and vocalist for the band the Mountain Goats. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife and sons.

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The Evening Hero: An Evening with Marie Myung-Ok Lee and John Darnielle