I wanted to like this book about a Korean-American doctor who survives the Korean War as a young boy, goes to medical school in Seoul, and then ends up a doctor in a small town in Minnesota more than I did. The heart of the story was good but I couldn't tell what the author wanted this book to be. Was it a war story? A longing-for-home/hiding secrets story? A darkly satirical look at the United States? There's lots to discuss and unpack in this book so it would make a good book club book (but it might be hard to get everyone in a book club to finish it.)

The Evening Hero follows the story of a Korean immigrant trying to find his way in America. The story bounces back and forth between the main characters time in America, eventually with a family of his own and his time in Korea as a boy. The story exposes the hardships of immigration as well as exposes the American healthcare system for what it is. Dr Kwak keeps secrets from his family and eventually he has to confront those secrets. This was an exceptional and thought provoking read.

I need to read more Korean novels. I find that I really enjoy them, especially if they are historical fiction. Sadly, I do not know much about the Korean war or life in Korea at all and so I really learned a lot from this book. I can't imagine what a culture shock it was for Yungman and his wife when they moved to America. And then to go from being an OB/GYN to working with his son....wow. You have to read it to understand! I really enjoyed the flashback to Yungman growing up and trying to survive with his brother and mother. I also thought the ending tied everything up well. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you t😊 the publisher and netgalley for this book!! I was drawn to the summary and cover but learning that this book took 18 years!! Oh my ! I really enjoyed my time with this one ❤️

**Many thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Marie Myung-Ok Lee for an ARC of this book!!**

Dr. Yungman Kwak has immigrated to the United States from Korea, living now in a time where a hospital closure and his retirement from the Ob-Gyn world have left him adrift. Unable to just sit at home sipping Johnnie Walker Black, he begrudgingly takes a job at a Rent-A-Doc type stand at the mall after some encouragement from his son Einstein. This storefront is unusual, however...he is set to essentially provide hair removal services to women in a medical fashion for money, on a specific clock and promoting the brand all the while.

His past is about to find him, however, in a big way...a letter from Yungman's younger brother will change everything, and memories of his life in Korea and the tangled string of events and secrets that took him from Korea to America rise to meet him once again. Can he find his way back to his family AND reconcile his feelings about the state of the America that is his reality now rather than the America of his nearly forgotten dreams?

I'll be honest, this book may have THE most misleading blurb I can think of in recent memory. I didn't even see that this novel was supposed to be 'darkly comical' until revisiting the summary just now, and I am even MORE baffled. Nothing, and I mean nothing, was funny about this book. Odd? For sure. Satirical? Maybe, if you consider the aforementioned futuristic version of the Docs-For-Hire in a local mall to be satirical. Honestly, the book purports to be ALL ABOUT this plot, and it is only truly present in the first 25% or so.

So what IS this book about?

War. Lots and lots of details about the Korean War, the history of Korea, and of course Yungman's rambling and ambling backstory.

The blurb also says this book "toggles back and forth between past and present', which is patently untrue. After a brief sojourn through Dr. Kwak's current state of affairs, you go pretty far back in his life...and then move forward...at a snail's pace. I remember thinking early on how wordy this book felt, and that feeling only grew the further I read. No emotional pull had me cheering or caring for the characters, and they weren't particularly dynamic on any level. This book was not sold as historical fiction...but it sure read like historical fiction. I doubt even finding the 'humor' in the situation would have saved it for me. I tried to keep from skimming, but honestly couldn't help it.

I can't remember the last time I felt such a foreboding air from early on that this would be a book I would likely have put down entirely if I wasn't set to review it...and despite forging ahead and seeing it through, this book for me was (sadly) heavy on the Zero and light on the Hero.

3 stars

Dr Yungman Kwak is a Korean born physician. Fifty years ago he and his wife left everything they knew to pursue the American Dream. He was a practicing OB-GYN at a small, for profit hospital in rural Minnesota until its abrupt closure (no profit). Devoted to his work, he is at a loss wondering what to do. His wife has no interest in him, having been denied a work VISA (she is also a physician) she has immersed herself in her church and church friends. Kwak's son, Einstein, gets him a job with his company 'Retailacine' which runs MBROs (Mall Based Retail Outlets) providing “value-based medicine to optimize quality of life”. Operating out of the Mall of America, the ‘HoSPAtal' offers services such as Speedee Dialysis, At Your Cervix and Vaccines R Us. Kwak’s job is to perform depilation (hair removal) on his “patients” all day, every day.

Kwak and his wife decide to return to Korea to honor their ancestors. They volunteer with Doctors Without Borders and go to what is now N Korea (where they are from - back when Korea was one country). As Kwak reminisces, we learn more about the life and family he left behind. But Kwak’s return to Korea is marred by an undercurrent of angst. In returning, he must confront his past - even if it means destroying all he has built. Lee spends goes into a lot of detail on Korean War and its effects on the Korean people. Sad as it is, I found this part fascinating. We learn so little about the Korean War in school.

This just released novel is as complicated as it is moving, Lee addresses many critical issues and there is a lot going on. At 444 pages, it is not an absurdly long book but I did struggle a bit as the book moves slowly at times. Kwak is the protagonist and tells the story; unfortunately, I did not really warm to most of the characters. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I received an advance copy of The Evening Hero in exchange for a fair and honest review. Recently Released: May 24, 2022 #SimonandSchuster #NetGalley

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How many choices does it take to make a life? How late is too late? What kind of country do we want?

These are all questions explored in The Evening Hero, a sprawling tapestry of love, life, and decisions stretching from Korean War-era Korea to present-day America. Through the superficial ordinariness of her protagonist, Yungman, Marie Myung-Ok Lee explores situations on the macro scale—American politics, immigration policies, the aggressive privatization of healthcare—and situations on the micro scale—the weight of the past, the boundaries of familial love, the value of community even in the most painful of times. This is a story about the history that each individual carries within them, told and untold.

Even as the daughter of immigrants, I feel Yungman's story deeply. It's the little things— like eternally latching onto scents as random as pine and comparing them to rice cakes back home (or, for me, inhaling a wisp of incense in the middle of my college campus and being immediately transported to one of the many temples that abut the sidewalk in Taiwan). Even the perspective of Einstein—Yungman's son—on his childhood is shockingly relevant to my own upbringing. But it is perhaps the community aspect of Asian and Korean culture Lee explores that is the most important; as much as this is a novel focused on the past, it is also a novel exalting the longevity of certain values, chief among them being family. Family is never simple, never easy—but it can be, at the end of it all.

Even Lee's various musings on American healthcare today blend seamlessly into the story; what could have easily been a soapbox tangent becomes integral to the story. Her criticisms of American politics—landing just shy of criticizing Donald Trump himself despite including all other events and attributes of his tenure—are less successful but effective in their own way.

The Evening Hero is the story of a life. There are stories that are sprawling in their own way, either in the amount of details and characters they encompass or in the sheer amount of events they cover, but they cannot all claim to be the story of a life. Yungman's fingerprints are on the pages of this novel. He lives and breathes in every single word, and to tell such a story without ego, without overusing authorial tricks—that is Lee's strength. I would gladly seek the spotted lily with Yungman all over again.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

The Evening Hero follows the life of Doctor Yungman Kwak, a Korean immigrant and an obstetrician working in a small town in Minnesota. Yungman is seemingly perfectly ordinary - he has a wife and a son, he cares about his patients, he has a routine that hasn’t changed in years. But Yungman carries a huge secret about his past back in North Korea - one that even his wife doesn’t know about. When one day Yungman is notified that his hospital is closing down, it sets in motion a chain of events that force him to face his secrets head on.

Reading this novel felt like reading two books at once. The parts about Yungman’s current life and the fallout from him losing his job had an absurdist, even quirky atmosphere (like his son tricking him into working at a ‘medical startup’, where Yungman basically ends up doing bikini hair removal), while the chapters dealing with his past are emotional, informative and at times disturbing. I loved this stark contrast because it put Yungman and his struggles in the US in a very different light. I also appreciated that a lot of this novel was dedicated to the issues of immigration, racism, poverty, and the atrocities of war. I enjoyed the plot more and more the further I got, but some of the side characters felt very one-dimensional and too stereotypical (for example Yungman’s daughter-in-law, who is a typical stuck up Karen).

TLDR: The Evening Hero is an interesting, unique novel that blends different genres together, and does it in a very satisfying way. A perfect read for anyone who expects something more from their historical fiction.

A compelling read. Beautifully written and well-thought-out. Very educational and tackled some tough issues but in a digestible manner. Would definitely recommend!

I slogged thru this because I felt a duty to finish it because it was an ARC provided to me in exchange for an honest review. Its a mish mash of times, locations, lyrical scenes and satirical ones. It just never engaged me, although I did come to care for the protagonist. I suppose I did learn more about the Korean War, but it was so buried in details that presupposed I knew more than I did about the culture, that I found myself skimming great swaths because I couldn't follow it.

4.5/5

This is so close to being a great book! The main character is one of my favorites of the year so far, and the story is accessible and easy to read and is a great example of talking about serious topics in a way that won’t leave the ready bloody from heavy-handed pummeling in the end. Korea’s history was the most fascinating for me. Now for just a couple reasons this is not a perfect book. One, it’s just a tad too long for my taste. Two, it’s tone is a bit schizophrenic. These are very minor so highly highly recommended.

The gist by invisiblemonster in Readerly is mine. Thanks for this opportunity.

This novel is a family saga, a war novel, an immigration novel, and offers biting criticism on both the American medical system and startup culture. There is a lot here, and it moves between heartbreaking and hilarious. Which is actual kind of odd—in many ways the different themes in this novel don’t mesh well, even though individually they are all well done. (I hope Lee writes a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel—she has fascinating ideas that are clever and frightening and believable.)

I really enjoyed this book, and the themes in it reminded me of a few others: If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim; The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Shin Kyung-Sook; and Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

Dr. Kwak has been delivering babies in Minnesota for the last fifty years. He wanted this, the American dream, to build a life on sweat and dedication. After the Korean War, he left behind all he knew in Korea to build a life here. Yet, it is built on a foundation of lies, and the letter that has arrived knows the truth. Dr. Kwak's life begins to unravel as his hospital shuts down, and his family feels like it's drifting apart. It is in this freshly stagnant quagmire that Kwak takes stock of his life, from his youth in Korea to his many years in America. For all his dreams and efforts, the infrastructure of the American healthcare system remains broken, he is still considered an outsider, and for all its flaws, maybe it is Korea that holds both truth and purpose for Dr. Kwak.

Some stories feel important, and I'm willing to say this one definitely feels that way. There aren't many novels about Korea, and there are fewer still that blend dark humor with grim memories of the Korean War and Japanese occupation. The protagonist, Yungman Kwak, is forced into retirement against his will, and that forces him to reckon with his life, the good and the bad. He recalls the horrors of war in his youth, the differences in societal and economic approaches between Korea and America, and he is dismayed that he can never illustrate to his son his own perspective, for his son only knows the American way.

The Evening Hero is the tale of one Korean doctor's life, at least as he remembers it, painted in tragedy and comedy, skewering aspects of life and society that are uniquely and egregiously unfair, and sometimes horrifying. Recommended for readers who are interested in Korean stories, stories about immigrants, tragedy mixed with comedy, and stories with social commentary about the healthcare system, the American dream, and generational disconnects that can feel impossible to bridge.

The Evening Hero may well be the best book I’ve read so far this year. A rich and nuanced take on feelings of ‘otherness’ after displacement, The Evening Hero provides an insider-outsider’s view into both America and Korea (North, South, past, and present).

Yungman Kwak, the novel’s titular evening hero, is a man at the twilight of his life who, in many ways, is only now properly able to start trying to live, rather than merely survive. As a small-town American doctor, his observations on and perspective of the contemporary American healthcare system is insightful, pointed, and at times satiric. As a Korean immigrant, from a village once considered southern but now in DPRK territory, his memories of the Korean War (6.25) and displaced connection to his native soil are as enlightening and edifying to a reader unfamiliar with the “Forgotten War” as they are poignantly human.

It's difficult to discuss in a review format all of the ways in which this novel succeeds. As a piece of American immigration literature, it profoundly discusses feelings of displacement, estrangement, mixed national pride, otherization, assimilation, longing, fear, and hope. As a memoiristic novel about family, it neatly interweaves Kwak’s love for and desire to honor and do right by his ancestors and family with his complicated estrangement from his living family—his total break from Korean relatives, his awkward communication barrier with his Americanized son and grandson. As a piece of historical fiction, it’s a meticulously researched account of the realities of the Korean war that places human experience before political and military overview, without ever veering into melodrama or ‘trauma porn.’ As a commentary on modern American life, it’s a pointed look at social and racial dynamics and a harshly satiric funhouse mirror of our corporatized healthcare system.

The novel is an excellent work of literary fiction, a truly engaging narrative as enjoyable as it is important.

As a young man in Korea, Dr. Yungman Kwak's family is torn apart by the war. Hiding a shameful secret, he manages to escape to medical school in America, with his pregnant bride. However, the American dream isn't all it's cracked up to be and somehow, he needs to reconcile the events of his past. This is a very dark book. It really makes you think about the real effects of the Korean War and America's for-profit medical system. Yet. it is also very touching in many ways. Dr. Kwak is a far from perfect character. Still, you can't help rooting for him because he cares so deeply, and he wants to do what's right even if he isn't always able to do so.

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. And happy pub day to The Evening Hero!</i>

Marie Myung-Ok Lee does a lot in one novel here. She combines the <b>realistic horrors of a healthcare system that became increasingly marketized</b> (eg. "retailicine," the "HoSPAtal," "Vaccines R Us," "Depilation Nation" -- all branches under a "Mall-Based Medical Retail Outlet Human Capital Department"). Our protagonist, Youngman, works at a hospital that is de-funded by SANUS, the corporation that owns this medical retail outlet. Youngman, as a devoted doctor, recognizes the un-medical nature of SANUS, which happens to be supported by his own son. An evocative and timely statement on the rise of hypercapitalism, where basic fundamental rights are reduced into profit-driven markets.

Holding onto this, there are larger strands that connect North Korea, South Korea, and the United States through Youngman's family history and migration story -- one that starts in what we now refer to as "North" Korea, which trickles into "South" Korea and later to the United States. Youngman, facing challenges with his occupation (see above), his ethnicity (being Korean in a predominantly white town), his marriage and current family life, and his past, follows a path that will take him to places he never thought he'd return to...

Overall, this is a momentous book that highlights the fraught, tragic history behind the two Koreas. It is a story that is marked by the courage to look back and reflect -- a privilege that immigrants often cannot afford in the face of tough survival. Youngman is not who you would consider being a heroic character -- no, he is avoidant, he is indecisive, and often he is awkward. He has betrayed, he has abandoned, he has blundered immensely. However, he is undoubtedly a hero and that is the virtue of this book.

I am particularly appreciative of the author's note, where Lee writes:

"One reason this book has taken so long to complete is my attempt (destined to fall short) to render historical events with as much accuracy as possible. But what is "accuracy," and how much does it become altered by personal experience as well as bent by the vagaries of time? Many of our Korean elders, including my father, have been lost to time, and so there was a lot of urgency in hearing survivors' stories before they passed."

As a Korean American diasporic individual, with familial ties across the 38th parallel, I can affirm this with the entirety of my heart. Accuracy, punctuality, and vision -- these are all challenges in excavating histories lost to time and borders. It is stories that soften these lines, however. I am thinking about how my grandmother shared with me, for the first time, that our family's history lies on the northern side of the parallel when we watched the movie Operation Chromite for the first time, pointing out General MacArthur, who commanded the US forces during the Korean War. Megadoo, she insisted, just like Youngman notes in The Evening Hero. It isn't until years later that I fully realized she was referring to MacArthur, and that half of my family line is stunted by the border line splitting the Korean peninsula.

It is a wonder to observe stories like The Evening Hero, and to recognize that these stories may be one of the first stories of their kind, but certainly not the last. Lately, I have been rejecting the comparison model for book promotion. Instead, I would like to tap into a "sibling" or "companion" model, where books are in conversation with one another. To me, The Evening Hero seems to be a companion -- or a novel with themes in conversation with -- Ling Ma's Severance and Min Jin Lee's Pachinko.

Happy publication day! This is a beautifully written epic novel that is both hilarious and sad, joyful and ruminating. Everyone who reads this will take something from it. It is a tale of a life well lived. It encompasses Yungman’s past and present and his coming to terms with the somewhat ridiculousness of current America and a difficult past he has left. You can take the boy out of Korea, but you can’t take Korea out of the boy. The story beautifully explores the topics of family, tradition, expectations, country and personal fulfillment. A beautiful read. Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Shuster for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This story is never leaving my soul.

Books like this are why I read. It was just beautiful and engaging and I didn’t want it to end. I left me thinking and I certainly recommend to anyone who loves literary fiction.

The Evening Hero is a lyrical novel following the life of a Korean immigrant who is in the pursuit of the American dream. In the story, Dr. Yungman Kwak must face the realities of his past in all its ups and downs to preserve the life he's long since built from the rubbles of his old one.

This book was such a wonderful read despite Dr. Kwak's life being quite the melancholic story of a family undergoing certain changes due to inevitable factors in life such as the overall progressiveness of the world and its continuous need for change. Nevertheless, The Evening Hero certainly gave me an insightful look at the life of an immigrant family trying to make a life for themselves in a foreign land, somewhere so for away from the place they once called home. But much like other people, I found the parts told from the past regarding Dr. Kwak's life back in Korea the most enjoyable and interesting of all. I didn't have a fully committed interest in the book until things took a turn and we were suddenly transported back to Korea, in a setting revolving around his life as a child living in a country riddled with war and chaos.

Now, going to Marie Myung-Ok Lee's writing. I though that some paragraphs were done or ended awkwardly (I'm not sure if this as a problem for other people, but it definitely resulted in my reading the book a bit slower that what I had expected). Then, it felt as if there were too many things going on all at once that it made it hard for me to absorb the information sometimes. There was an abundant need for me to reread certain parts which just stunted my reading progress even more. Because instead of reading seamlessly, I had to pause and reread the same thing a couple of times before successfully absorbing what the chapter or the character was trying to say.

Yungman Kwak's life is turned upside down when the hospital where he's been a OB-GYN closes at the same time that his wife turns to religion. And he's been ignoring the letters coming from Korea, where he left his brother behind all those years ago- a brother his wife has never known existed. Know that this shifts back and forth between the present, as Yungman navigates working in the medical startup his son Einstein is promoting, and the past, during dark years in Korea. It's an unusual mix of historical fiction and satire in the present. It's easy to point out the flaws in this- there's an extraneous subplot involving Lark, a medical student friend, his wife is not well developed, things shift back and forth (it felt as though something was missing) within the historical sections- but it's an impressive immersive read. Lee doesn't pull punches regarding the impact of the Korean War on Yungman's family or with regard to his missing father. Nor does she give the medical industry a pass. Einstein and his wife Marni are, to be honest, loathsome. All of that said, it's a terrific look at a man who is suddenly forced to confront a past he has denied. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Great read.