Finalist for the 2016 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize
Boston Authors Club's Julia Ward Howe Award
Goodreads Best Fiction Book of the Year
A powerful domestic drama, Shelter reveals the secrets and troubles of two generations of a Korean-American family.
You never know what goes on behind closed doors.
Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. For years, he and his wife, Gillian, have lived beyond their means. Now their bad decisions are catching up with them, and Kyung is anxious for his family's future.
A few miles away, his parents, Jin and Mae, live in the town’s most exclusive neighborhood, surrounded by the material comforts that Kyung wants so badly for his wife and son. His own childhood, however, was far from comfortable. As a child, he had every possible privilege--expensive hobbies, private tutors--but his parents never showed him kindness. Kyung can hardly bear to see them now, much less ask for their help. Yet when an act of violence leaves Jin and Mae unable to live on their own, the dynamic suddenly changes, and he's compelled to take them in. For the first time in years, the Chos find themselves living under the same roof. Tensions quickly mount as Kyung's proximity to his parents forces old feelings of guilt and anger to the surface, along with a terrible and persistent question: How can he ever be a good husband, father, and son when he never knew affection as a child?
As Shelter veers swiftly towards its startling conclusion, Jung Yun leads us through dark and violent territory, where, unexpectedly, the Chos discover hope. In the tradition of House of Sand and Fog and The Ice Storm, Shelter is a masterfully crafted first novel that asks what it means to provide for one's family and, in answer, delivers a story as riveting as it is profound.
Shelter by Jung Yun
JUNG YUN was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She studied at Vassar College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing.
Her work has appeared in Tin House, the Massachusetts Review, the Indiana Review, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She is the recipient of individual artist’s grants in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. She has also received residential fellowships from MacDowell, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the National Humanities Center.
Currently, Jung lives in Baltimore with her husband and is an associate professor of English at the George Washington University. She serves on the board of directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.
Pronunciation notes: “Jung” sounds exactly like the first syllable of “jungle” and “Yun” rhymes with “tune.”