O Beautiful
Jung Yun
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
A New York Times Editors' Choice Book
From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America. Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family's estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she's trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world. With spare and graceful prose, Jung Yun's O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman's attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.Product Details
Price
$27.99
$26.03
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Publish Date
November 09, 2021
Pages
320
Dimensions
5.75 X 8.5 X 1.1 inches | 0.85 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781250274328
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. Her debut novel, Shelter was long-listed for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and a semi-finalist for Good Reads' Best Fiction Book of 2016. A 2018 MacDowell fellow, her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Tin House, and others. She lives in Baltimore, and serves as an assistant professor at the George Washington University.
Reviews
"Enthralling and thought-provoking...Explore[s] larger questions about power and belonging in modern America....A quiet and dangerous story and an insightful meditation on how to make our lives here, amid the beauty and horror of our country."--Crystal Hana Kim, The Washington Post
"This mesmerizing and timely novel, the author's second, provides an on-ramp into conversations about racism, environmentalism, journalism, economics and sisterhood."--Elizabeth Egan, The New York Times, Editors' Choice