Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 5 reviews on
Nancy Jooyoun Kim is an author.
Yesterday @glossbookclub event, a reader asked me to recommend a book about the Korean War and it's @MarieMyungOkLee THE EVENING HERO which I am reading and loving now. It's unrelentingly smart and funny and verrrry KOREAN. https://bookshop.org/books/the-evening-hero/9781476735078
Alexandra Kleeman is an author.
Happy belated bookday to @MarieMyungOkLee and her powerful, beautifully observed novel THE EVENING HERO! Out now from @SimonBooks for all your late-spring emotional needs
Kate Manning is an author.
"A soulful, melodic, rhapsodic novel." Wow wow wow what a rave review! congrats @MarieMyungOkLee and Happy Pub Day to you and THE EVENING HERO can't wait to read #Pubday #TheEveningHero #Fiction https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/23/books/review/evening-hero-marie-myung-ok-lee.html?smid=tw-share
"The novel also elucidates with remarkable feeling how war reverberates through a person's lifetime--their body, mind, and memories--no matter how far in the past it may seem. This story is filled with as much heartache and healing as it is historical significance." --KIRKUS REVIEWS
"An ambitious story charting the travails of an elderly immigrant doctor...Lee offers touching details...fans of immigrant stories will appreciate Lee's labor of love."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The Evening Hero is at once a hilarious, lacerating look at the American for-profit healthcare system and a profoundly moving examination of the long-term effects of war, trauma, and displacement on individuals, families, and cultures. I will never forget Marie Myung-Ok Lee's evening hero, Dr. Yungman Kwak." --ANN PACKER, New York Times bestselling author of The Children's Crusade
"The Evening Hero is an incredible achievement, a finely observed portrait of a man and the constant accrual of the past, the weight of family, of identity, of money, of home. Marie Myung-Ok Lee writes with such spirit and clarity, but it all resonates because of her skill with humor and the inevitable darkness brought on by the absurdity of the world. A brilliant book." --KEVIN WILSON, bestselling author of The Family Fang and Nothing to See Here
"Lee has created a poignant portrait of an aging immigrant doctor desperate to make sense of his history and find his place--within his marriage, his family, his community, his country. Filled with sharp insights into immigrant life and biting, satirical commentary on consumerism, this beautifully multi-layered novel will stay with me for a long time." --ANGIE KIM, bestselling author of Miracle Creek
"A profound meditation on what happens to those of us who come to this country from elsewhere, what we gain and what we lose. Yungman is an indelible hero. Lee is a magnificent writer." --GARY SHTEYNGART, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure
"The Evening Hero is a beautiful, lush, moving story of family, of Korean and American history, of the legacy of war, and of the trauma of displacement. With great wit and humanity, it skewers the medical-industrial complex and the deep inequity of contemporary America. But most of all this novel is a tender, complex, vivid portrait of Yungman, the indelible Evening Hero." --DANA SPIOTTA, author of Wayward, Innocents and Others, and Eat the Document
"Heartfelt and keenly observed, The Evening Hero casts an urgent and insightful gaze on lived identity, positioned precariously at the intersection of past and future, homeland and adopted home." --ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN, author of Something New Under the Sun
"Astonishing line by line but also in the brilliant symmetry and epic sweep of the storytelling. Yungman's life has been torn in half by war, just as his home country Korea has been torn in half by war. Our Evening Hero's journey will entail trying to heal the invisible wounds of war and to make his life whole. Elegiac, fiercely intelligent, historically astute, full of hard won emotional truths and pathos, this book is a mesmerizing investigation into the mysteries of the human heart." --GABE HUDSON, author of Gork, the Teenage Dragon
"The Evening Hero rewards its readers threefold: it opens the world of Koreans and Korean Americans, it raises larges questions, and is a genuine page turner." --MARY GORDON, author of Final Payments and Payback
"Lee's writing shines is in the details, as she flexes her creative muscles to fill Yungman's story with historical accuracy and a true-to-life depiction of the depth of humanity. Wholesome and engaging overall, The Evening Hero ultimately results in a captivating tale of human struggle and survival." --BOOKLIST