This isn’t a spoiler, but at the very end of Jinwoo Chong’s I Leave It Up to You, the narrator and protagonist, Jack Jr., runs after a bus. After spending so much time with this son of Korean immigrants, you know exactly why he wants to catch this bus, and there’s nothing you can do but cheer.
The story opens with Jack Jr. (it’s important to him that everyone remember the Jr.) emerging from a two-year coma. He’s been on a respirator, so you may first assume that he’s a victim of COVID-19. That isn’t the case, but COVID does play a surprising role in the story later on. Once he’s finally awake, his family rushes to the hospital. They’re his mother, Ari, his father, Jack Sr., and his brother, James, with whom Jack Jr. has never gotten along. James is seven years older than Jack Jr., and the father of snarky, lovable, 16-year-old Juno.
Jack Jr. learns quickly that the world has changed. James has a second son, a baby, born while his uncle was still comatose. Jack Jr.’s old job, old apartment and old relationships are gone. He has to move back in with his parents and resume working at the family restaurant he abandoned when he was a teenager. It’s a sushi restaurant, which, if you’re familiar with the history of Japan’s colonization of Korea, is noteworthy. Jack Sr.’s father swore he’d never speak to him again if he went to Japan to become a sushi master, but Jack Sr. went anyway. This was the beginning of the tangled paternal and filial expectations, the pull between self-actualization and familial obligations, that bedevil this fractious but loving family.
Chong, author of Flux, is masterful at presenting his characters and describing their world. Much of I Leave It Up To You is set during a New Jersey winter, and his depictions of ice, snow, frost and freezing cold might make your teeth chatter. His description of Jack Jr. struggling out of his coma is alone worth the price of admission. You won’t forget this big-hearted, beautifully written book.
