The Stone Home

Kim’s (If You Leave Me) latest opens in 2011 when 46-year-old Eunju is visited by Narae, a Korean American woman whose life is entwined with her own. The story travels 30 years into the past, as South Korean police round up the country’s undesirables and send them to reformatory centers where the detainees are supposed to receive education and job training. Instead, they are forced to work long and hard in a prison-like setting. Fifteen-year-old Eunju and her mother have been living on the streets and are sent to the Stone Home reformatory. There, they meet others who have been unlawfully arrested, including teen brothers Youngchul and Sangchul. Violence, cruelty, and the twisted dynamics of the place set the characters on a path of heartbreak and misunderstanding, all of which converge on the mysterious Narae. In an author’s note, Kim explains that events in the book are based on a true story. The desperation and misery of the detainees’ daily lives dominate this compelling novel, and narrators Jennifer Sun Bell, Sue Jean Kim, Intae Kim, and Greta Jung expertly convey a wide range of emotions as the characters suffer reform.