"Story Time" for Parents and Caregivers: Crystal Hana Kim
Join the Astoria Bookshop every month for our "Story Time" for Parents & Caregivers, a recurring DAYTIME series for parents, caregivers, and their babies. In October, we welcome Crystal Hana Kim, author of the novels The Stone Home and If You Leave Me . Crystal will read selections from her work, as well as a classic kid's book for the baby audience. In between readings, local author and parent Nicole Haroutunian will facilitate a discussion with your fellow caregivers. Babies and young toddlers are welcome and encouraged to come along (we provide toys, a changing table, and stroller parking!) RSVP not required, but encouraged (you'll get a reminder email!) About the book “I read the entirety of The Stone Home during a recent flight to Seoul, unable to put it down, often crying.... The novel’s portrayals of caretaking, mothering, and tenderness inside and despite the reformatory’s walls are richly layered and intensely moving."--R. O. Kwon, Electric Literature In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they’re sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation’s citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions—and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come. Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter’s love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness. About the reader Crystal Hana Kim (she/her) is the author of The Stone Home and If You Leave Me , which was named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. Kim is the recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and is a 2017 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize winner. Currently, she is the Visiting Assistant Professor at Queens College and a contributing editor at Apogee Journal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family. About the host Nicole Haroutunian (she/her) is the author of Choose This Now, a novel-in-stories about art, parenthood, and the role of friendship in forging a life, as well as the story collection Speed Dreaming . Her work has appeared most recently in Electric Literature , The Rumpus , Mutha , The Georgia Review , and Story . She lives with her family in Woodside, Queens. Find her at nicoleharoutunian.com and on Instagram @nicoleharoutunianwriter.
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