Somebody's Daughter

Somebody's Daughter is the story of nineteen-year-old Sarah Thorson, who was adopted as a baby by a Lutheran couple in the Midwest. After dropping out of the University of Minnesota, she decides to study in Korea for a summer, more by happenstance than actual design, but as the summer progresses she becomes more and more intrigued by her Korean heritage and eventually embarks on a crusade to find her birthmother. Paralleling Sarah's story is that of Kyung-sook, who was forced by difficult circumstances to let her baby be swept away from her immediately after birth, but who has always longed for her lost child. The two stories are told side by side: Kyung-sook's is the remembrance of her childhood involvement with an American who eventually abandons her when she refuses to have an abortion, while Sarah's is the contemporary story of her deepening involvement with the culture and language of Korea, with Doug, her Korean American classmate, and with her search. These two narratives converge in one poignant moment, when the two women literally pass each other like ships in the night.