Hmm. How to write about a book that has wrecked your life, and left you making unintelligible grunts after each chapter?

I am always down for a good family epic, and with Pachinko, Min Jin Lee delivers one that is remarkable in its scope and setting. The novel takes its name from the Japanese form of pinball that is a billion-dollar industry in the country, and mostly run by ethnic Koreans living an often subjugated experience in Japan. If you’re like me, and have never heard of the game before hearing of this book, please don’t be scared to try it out—everything you need to know, you will, because Lee makes you feel the context and its implications.

Min Jin Lee balances an extremely delicate equilibrium of thematic and individual importance, and lays the “big issues” of occupation, colonialism, and inequality at the doormat of the Baek family’s home, so you step over them with each new story. Each character really lives in their particular trials—Japanese occupation and violence towards Koreans, nuclear bombings of WWII, and even the AIDS epidemic—instead of being defined by them. In this book, the paternalistic, oppressive Japanese state is so poignant because it’s contrasted with the quiet, unassuming, and tender protection these fathers hope to provide for their children. Every time a character is abused or maligned by the state, you feel enraged from a political standpoint, but also from an emotional one—you understand the great love this family has for each other, and how matters of inequality often keep them from expressing it fully.

The metaphor of pachinko as a game of unequal, oft-rigged chance conceptually frames the novel, but I still feel like its constantly-referenced underbelly was an elephant in the room. I’m not sure how Lee would’ve depicted this “dark gambling and mob underworld” if, as she suggests, it partially exists as a figment of anti-Korean imagination. It also likely would’ve made the story a much different, more violent tale, and I think this book really shines in its moments of gentle intimacy. However, I did feel like a lot of the plot-moving action and character-defining decisions of the pachinko men were hidden from us. This may be, in some ways, the reality of the incredible women in these stories, who carve out their livelihoods with the spare pieces left for them by their society and families. Often times, men DO hide their work from their families, but like in life, Lee’s characters find the means to support their husbands and lovers despite their flaws and secrets, and encourage their sons to lead more noble, though similarly difficult, lives.

There are so many more conversations I’d love to have about this book, and I’m hopeful that the LFPC May book discussion will offer up some great conversation. From my initial thoughts, I would recommend everyone to pick this one up. You will learn SO much about a community and experience many of us in the States have never reckoned with, but will also feel connected and devastated by these stories as if they were happening to your own family. If anyone wants to share their thoughts below, please feel free—I will likely be unpacking this story for months to come!