Nuclear Family

by Joseph Han

Recommended if you love: ancestral hauntings, magical realism, and stories about intergenerational immigrant families and questions about land and home.

Nuclear Family takes place in both Hawai’i and Korea in the months leading up to the 2018 nuclear missile false alarm. The story unfolds from the point of view of several different family members in this intergenerational story, some in the living world and some in another dimension of ghosts and afterlife. Amidst the magical realism Han constructs in this story, the Korean DMZ becomes a magical barrier and renders a description of the DMZ unlike any other.

The multiple dimensions of characters amongst the living and dead allows Han to weave a heartfelt story of loss and trauma inflicted on a family by larger systemic forces of war and militarism—though still with good amount of humor and levity. As someone who knows very little about the division of Korea, this story was a way to learn through fiction via a humanizing story and beautiful prose. I especially loved the ways that Han explored the tensions and complexities of standing in solidarity with Indigenous Hawaiian sovereignty while also existing as next gen displaced Asian immigrants in Hawai’i. And mixed into these different through lines are also explorations of queer identity and relationships to family.

Overall, an engaging read if you enjoy intergenerational family stories with a unique take everything from Guy Fieri to the colonization of Hawai’i.

-Sara

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