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A Novel
by Jinwoo Chong
From the award-winning author of Flux comes a dazzling novel about love, family, and the art of sushithat asks: What if you could return to the point of a fateful choice, wiser than before, and find the courage to forge a new path?
A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He's been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it's been ten years since he last saw his family.
Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa's life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 AM fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night's pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, too: That of romantic interest to the male nurse who took care of him throughout, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.
There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.
Why do we run from those we love, and why do we still love those who run from us? A highly entertaining and poignant story about second chances and self-discovery, I Leave It Up to You navigates loss, love, and the absurdity of finding one's footing after the ground gives way.
"Maybe I've been waiting my whole life for a novel about a Korean sushi chef in Fort Lee, New Jersey? I Leave It Up to You is funny and tender, with characters whose lives are satisfyingly messy. Jinwoo Chong is a writer for those of us who exist between cultures and identities." —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
"Prepare to be utterly charmed—Jinwoo Chong's I Leave It Up To You is a spirited and deeply affecting story about love in all its forms, the chaos and complications of family, and how to pick yourself back up in the wake of loss. As pleasurable as a good conversation over an excellent meal ... a joyous and poignant tale that bubbles over with humor, heart, and heat." —Gina Chung, author of Sea Change and Green Frog
"Exuberant and emotional, hilarious and full of heart, Jinwoo Chong's I Leave It Up to You is alive and boisterous and entirely profound. Chong's prose is ambitious and emotional, rendering questions of love, family, queerness, and connection with empathy and delight. I Leave It Up to You is wise and surprising, irresistible and insightful, a riot and a tender exploration of (re)discovering your place in the world." —Bryan Washington, author of Family Meal and Memorial
This information about I Leave It Up to You was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jinwoo Chong is the author of the novel Flux, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and VCU Cabell First Novel awards, a New York Times Editors' Choice, and named a best book of the year by Esquire, GQ, and Cosmopolitan. His short stories and other work have appeared in The Southern Review, Guernica, The Rumpus, LitHub, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature. He lives in New York.
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