Re Jane : [a novel]

Title:

Re Jane : [a novel]

Author:

Park, Patricia (Fiction writer), author

Personal Author:

Park, Patricia (Fiction writer), author

ISBN:

9780143107941

Physical Description:

342 pages ; 21 cm

General Note:

"A Pamela Dorman Book / Viking"--Title page verso.

Abstract:

For Jane Re, half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she's been trying to escape from her whole life. Sardonic yet vulnerable, Jane toils, unappreciated, in her strict uncle's grocery store and politely observes the traditional principle of nunchi (a combination of good manners, hierarchy, and obligation). Desperate for a new life, she's thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter. Inducted into the world of organic food co-ops and nineteenth-century novels, Jane is the recipient of Beth Mazer's feminist lectures and Ed Farley's very male attention. But when a family death interrupts Jane and Ed's blossoming affair, she flies off to Seoul, leaving New York far behind.

Subject Term:

Korean American women -- Fiction.

Au pairs -- Fiction.

Group identity -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Korea -- Fiction.

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Love stories.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION PARK	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION PARK	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Jane Re is a Korean-American orphan and Queens is her home. Jane toils in her Uncle's grocery store, desperate for an escape. When she lands a job as an au pair for the Mazer-Farleys - Brooklyn English professors with an adopted Chinese daughter - Jane is thrilled. Introduced into a whole new life that's worlds apart from the traditional Korean community she knows, she finds herself surrounded by organic food co-ops and 19th-Century novels. An original, contemporary recasting of Jane Eyre, Re Jane is a funny, moving novel about being true to yourself.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A young Korean-American woman grapples with issues of identity, family, and love in Park's debut novel, a sweet and savvy bildungsroman. Jane Re is a recent college graduate whose high-finance job offer evaporated when the dot-com bubble burst. Now she's stuck restocking shelves and serving irritable customers at Food, her disapproving aunt and uncle's grocery store. It doesn't help that everyone in her Korean immigrant neighborhood knows she's an orphan, and honhyol (mixed-blood) to boot. While her friends from school are off to impressive professional jobs, Jane is stuck in unfashionable Queens, wrestling with the broken door of the walk-in freezer, the constant criticism of her appearance ("Koreanish") and behavior, and the uncomfortable rigidity of family life. When her geeky friend Eunice Oh suggests she apply for an au pair job in Brooklyn, Jane finds herself plunged into a bewilderingly different cultural context that turns out to be a brave new world. The book is, in its own way, both a historical novel and a novel of place. Park's lovingly detailed descriptions reveal Brooklyn, Queens, and Seoul as seen by an intelligent 20-something in the first years of the 21st century. A varied cast of characterswomen's-studies professors, a Chinese adoptee, an Italian immigrant babysitter with a talent for home renovationis drawn with affectionate respect. Park does a lovely job of tracing Jane's growing maturity and self-knowledge. Her experiences facing her family history and complex identity when she visits South Korea to see her dying grandfather nicely mirror those among Korean immigrants and others in the U.S. Park is a fine writer with an eye for the effects of class and ethnic identity, a sense of humor, and a compassionate view of human weakness who nevertheless doesn't make the rookie error of letting her characters off easy. An enjoyable book offering a portrait of a young woman struggling to come into her own in the increasingly complicated opening years of a new century. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.