Synopsis

A Korean mother and son navigate wars, displacement, and identity across decades and borders in a moving multigenerational saga by the author of White Mulberry.

In 1943 Japan, the Pacific War rages on. Miyoung, a Korean-born single mother and nurse, defies an order to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army and instead flees with her six-year-old son, Ko-chan, who is leaving everything familiar behind, including the grandparents he loves. Miyoung hopes Ko-chan will finally claim his heritage and that she can reclaim her own as well.

Miyoung promises her anxious son an adventure. Their life-changing trek to Miyoung’s homeland takes them first to Japan-occupied Manchuria, where Miyoung’s brother offers shelter and Ko-chan, coming of age, begins to question where his future lies. When Japan’s defeat in World War II forces them to escape again, it triggers a decades-long odyssey of survival, sacrifice, and―for the generations to follow―a search for identity across three nations.

A powerful tribute to the endurance of family bonds, Red Seal explores the struggle to define oneself when torn between multiple worlds and by cultural upheaval, and the resilience it takes to find a place to call home.

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Excerpt

MIYOUNG

Busan

April 1943

Clouds darkened the bright spring sky, casting a grayish shadow over the Busan harbor. A sea of white hanbok, Western suits, and beige military uniforms jostled Miyoung as she gripped her son’s hand tighter. She scanned for a red hat in the crowd, pulling Ko-chan close. The stranger hired by Ko-chan’s grandmother to take him back to Kyoto hadn’t surfaced on their ferry ride over to Korea from Japan, but he could still be anywhere. Miyoung charged through the wall of coal smoke toward the station to board the train bound for Pyongyang. Soon they would be in the safety of their seats and on their way to her brother.

“Okaa-san! Mi-te! Tanku!” Ko-chan shouted in Japanese, pointing to the slow-moving tanks nearby. “Mother! Look!”

Uncertainty swirled over her homeland like thick fog. The port they had just departed creaked with sailors and porters packing overfilled ships and horns blaring as if ready for battle. Ash from steam engines and the scent of seawater choked her throat as she and Ko-chan passed wounded men, jeeps, and buildings flashing the Japanese flag. Japanese police and soldiers clutching large machine guns across their chests stomped through the streets in their heavy boots. The Busan of fifteen years ago dotted with colorful hillside homes and women calling out for live squid was gone.

Miyoung shook with fear. She couldn’t be caught here too, could she? She had taken her son from the only home he knew in Japan so they could be together. Now she wasn’t sure she had made the right decision. She tried to push her worries out of her mind. Her brother Taeyoung’s kind, welcoming face and his promise to shelter them when they arrived in Pyongyang propelled her forward.

Once they entered the train, Ko-chan plopped onto the wooden bench of the crowded second class car. He pressed his face against the dirty window at the flatcars carrying Japanese artillery, and horses peering out of their open stalls. Miyoung allowed herself to smile at Ko-chan’s excitement, despite the tightness in her neck at seeing war all around and not knowing what awaited them next. He was still just a little boy, after all, and tenderness swelled that she could finally be the mother she’d always wanted to be for him. She had lived apart from Ko-chan too long while she worked as a nurse in Osaka and he lived with his grandparents in Kyoto. She would provide for her son, and he would grow up with a loving mother beside him always.

Miyoung lifted her kimono sleeve to wipe the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. Their ship had crossed the Korea Strait without being mistaken for a Japanese naval ship and torpedoed by a US submarine, like another ferry on the same route the previous night. They had passed police checkpoints from Kyoto to Shimonoseki so she wouldn’t have to serve as a nurse in the Pacific War and be separated from her son. She let out a small sigh, grateful that they had made it this far.

Miyoung brushed a piece of dirt off Ko-chan’s black kindergarten uniform—the same one he had been wearing since they started their journey. She reached her other hand across her chest into her obi. She pulled out a small square wooden dojang, a name seal with his surname Kwon engraved in intricate Chinese calligraphy. The seal was a symbol of her husband Hojoon’s identity—to sign his newspaper articles, his exams, his letters to her—and was all she had of him since he passed away.

Hojoon had pressed his dojang into her palm the night he died. “Promise me you’ll go back to Korea with Ko-chan so he can reclaim his heritage and identity,” he had pleaded before the tuberculosis finally consumed him. And she had fulfilled his wish . . . their wish. He had been her first and only great love, and now she was a single mother alone at twenty-six.

Ko-chan did not know yet that he would not be returning to Japan. She had convinced him to come with her by telling him he would be going on an adventure to visit his uncle in Korea. He had been excited and hopefully still was. She would raise him to be proud of his identity, something Miyoung couldn’t do while passing as Japanese in Japan. She would raise him on her own terms and close the divide that had grown between them over the years.

About the Author

Rosa Kwon Easton is a Korean American lawyer, a library trustee, and the author of White Mulberry, a #1 bestseller in historical fiction. Named a “Best Book” by, among others, Parade magazine, BookBub, and Book Riot, White Mulberry has been translated into multiple languages. Easton is an Anaphora Writing Residency Fellow, and her work has appeared in CRAFT Literary, Electric Literature, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. A graduate of Smith College, Columbia University, and Boston College Law School, she resides with her husband and Maltipoo in sunny Southern California.

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