38 Chestnuts: A Korean American Novel - Tapa blanda

38 CHESTNUTS explores the lasting legacy of the Korean War on it's survivors through the points of views of three generations of one Korean American family.

UMA is forced to confront the kidnapping of her beloved eldest daughter by the Japanese Comfort Stations and the recruitment of her only son into the Communist Army. With so much loss, can she love the daughter who survives?

When APA is tortured by the Japanese, the Communist, and the South Korean Army, he is forced to do whatever it takes to protect his family. He struggles to hold onto his truth or risk losing his mind.

SUNNY, the sole surviving daughter who escaped North Korea with her parents, finds herself decades later, needing to enlist the help of her jilted lover or risk never finding her lost baby sister in North Korea. Her stubborn refusal to release the past stands in the way of reconciling with her daughter.

When LYDIA, Sunny’s American daughter is forced to confront her mother's intense hatred of the Japanese to live with her Japanese American boyfriend, her refusal to pass on a tradition of hate lands her behind enemy lines.

38 CHESTNUTS brings home the lessons of the forgotten war.

MARY J. PARK is the winner of the 2009 Hawaii Writers Conference (formally Maui Writers Conference) Prose Writing Competition, an alumna of Squaw Valley Community of Writers and a Finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. Her poetry has been published in Women’s Voices of the 21st Century: Experiences that Shape Women.

A graduate of Smith College with a Master’s in psychology, she lives on the Big Island of Hawaii with her high school sweetheart, a pair of Hungarian Vizslas and a pair of orange cream felines.