When We Fell Apart

Looking for belonging in his mother’s country, away from the microaggressions of a California upbringing, biracial Min takes a job in Seoul after college. The work, teaching American culture to Samsung’s sales team, serves as a reminder of his perceived otherness even here, but a new relationship with college senior Yu-jin might have been the local connection he needed—if she had not killed herself shortly after they started dating. Narrator Daniel K. Isaac portrays Min as a brooding, gravel-voiced outsider who investigates Yu-jin’s death with noir-like persistence despite their brief acquaintance, blind to his cultural biases and suspicious of all in her orbit. In alternating chapters, co-narrator Shannon Tyo lets Yu-jin tell her own version of events: the expectations placed on her and the liberating joy she found in defiance of them. Tyo’s youthful voice captures the wonder and terror Yu-jin feels as she grows creatively while keeping secrets from her parents, and from Min, emphasizing the avoidable tragedy of her early death.