Once the Shore by Paul Yoon

From the Publisher

With Once the Shore, Paul Yoon delivers an astonishing debut of linked short stories set on a South Korean island.

Spanning over half a century—from the years just before the Korean War to the present—the eight stories in this collection reveal an intricate and unforgettable portrait of a single place in its entirety. An elderly couple embark on a fishing boat in a harrowing journey to find their son, hoping that he has survived a bombing in the Pacific. A Japanese orphaned woman's past revisits her with devastating consequences in a wartime hospital. A case of mistaken identity compels a husband and wife to question the foundation upon which their lives have been built. An AWOL American soldier finds refuge in a small farming community, unknowingly endangering its inhabitants. And in the celebrated title story, a horrific accident at sea becomes the catalyst for an unlikely friendship between an American widow and a young waiter at a coastal resort.

These stories capture, with lyrical precision, the moments in which lives shift and unravel—where loss is ultimately turned into a search for reconciliation, and where the silences that pass between lovers and siblings, between parents and their children, are as powerful as the reverberations of war. Novelistic in scope, daring in its varied environments, Once the Shore introduces a remarkable new voice in international fiction.

The New York Times - Joan Silber

Yoon's prose is spare and beautiful…the beauty of these stories is precisely in their reserve: they are mild and stark at the same time…Most of the collection's characters move through events with a resignation or forbearance rare in contemporary fiction. Once the Shore is the work of a large and quiet talent.

Publishers Weekly

Yoon's collection of eight richly textured stories explore the themes of family, lost love, silence, alienation and the effects of the Japanese occupation and the Korean War on the poor communities of a small South Korean island. In the namesake story, a lonely young waiter connects with an American widow who has come to find the cave where her husband claimed to have carved their initials during his tour of duty in Korea. The narrator shifts between Jim coping with the loss of his big brother, a fisherman killed by a surfacing American submarine, and the sorrow of the widow. In "Among the Wreckage," aging parents Bey and Soni hope to recover the body of their son, Karo, killed in a U.S. military bombing test on what was thought to be a deserted island. The sad journey provides Bey an opportunity to examine his inability to show affection to his wife and only child. Yoon's stories are introspective and tender while also painting with bold strokes the details of the lives of the invisible. (Apr.)

What People Are Saying

“Paul Yoon writes stories the way Fabergé made eggs: with untold craftsmanship, artistry, and delicacy. Again and again another layer of intricacy is revealed, proving that something as small as a story can be as satisfying and moving as a Russian novel.”—Ann Patchett

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