Long for this World - Sonya Chung

I was eleven, I think. The world had begun to seem an unpleasant and unstable place. Magic. Magic was everything. See, click, poof! That first real camera seemed the answer to everything, a revelation--like a crime with no punishment. The world was mine for the taking. From the beginning, I somehow knew: behind the lens, I had my footing. It was a place of instant solitude, and safe.

Looking back, it was probably best that my parents refused my pleas for a complex manual-focus Pentax until I was older. Those first few years I had one variable to work with: the frame. Within such parameters, your eyes begin to work hard. You learn to tilt your head, bend your knees, step back, look away then look again. You learn to scan. Pause. Wait--for the light to shift, the subject to turn, the wind to blow, your eyes to adjust until texture and dimension come into relief. You learn to always keep your eyes working when they are open, sometimes even when they are closed.

Sonya Chung's novel tells the story of a Korean family spread over the world that finds itself coming together. The book is complex and layered with the family members and the vastly different lives they have lived. The narrator is a photojournalist daughter who brings insights from around the world, including war photography in Bagdad. The characters are distinct and offer a wide range of emotions and experiences. An ambitious first book that deserves the praise it has received. Chung is an excellent writer.