I started writing the Sarah stories in 1992 and amassed a good number of them, but no matter what I did, the stories didn’t gel as either a collection or a novel. Slowly, I began to realize that another voice was struggling to be heard: Sarah’s birth mother. I ignored this call for quite a while, because I knew inevitably that I’d need to go to Korea. And beyond the usual hassles of planning and funding such a trip, finding a place to live, etc., I’d also somehow have to find some birth mothers, get them to agree to talk to me about the most traumatic experience in their lives, and I’d have to learn Korean well enough to talk to them! At the time I also had many urgent things occupying my mind: I was getting married, and my mother-in-law-to-be was dying of cancer.
But the voice kept calling to me. Without much hope, I applied for a Fulbright Fellowship, calling my project Silent Mothers: The Story of Korean Birthmothers. Practically on the eve on my wedding, I found out that I had actually won it—funding plus other support for a year in Korea. My husband encouraged me to go, even if it meant we’d spend our first year of marriage apart. Three weeks later, I was in Seoul with little more than my Fulbright credentials (which gave me access to the U.S. Army bases) and some leads from my friends Brian Boyd and Mrs. Hyun-Sook Han, which eventually led me to Mrs. Sang-Soon Han and the Ae Ran Won home for women.
Doing research for a fictional work is always tricky—what to leave as the real fact, what to fictionalize? For this project in particular, taking oral histories of the various birth mothers who agreed to be interviewed was both inspiring and heartbreaking. None of the birth mothers who spoke to me imposed restrictions on what I could ask, and they all freely offered so many brave and unsparing glimpses into their hearts (one woman even let me read her diary) that I can never thank them enough for this gift. They all said—independently—that part of their motivation for agreeing to speak with me, despite the stigma and secrecy that still exists, was that they hoped some fragment of their love would pass into the book and be understood by their birth children.
The deepest hearts of these mothers, then, inhabits this book, and I send these women my everlasting love, gratitude, and admiration. Everything else is fiction. Kyung-sook is entirely my creation, as is Enduring Pine Village.
So many people and institutions aided in the writing of this book that inevitably I’m going to forget to thank some very important people—and I apologize in advance.
For financial support and research opportunities, I want to thank the J. William Fulbright Foundation, Yale University, Brown University, the Hedgebrook Writers’ Colony, and the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. The O. Henry prize panel gave me a lift by bestowing an honorable mention for one of Somebody’s Daughter’s original seed stories when I needed it most.
Thank you to early readers Edward Bok Lee, Dean Jacoby, Michelle Lee, Ed Hardy, and especially Professor Heinz Insu Fenkl—mentor, oppa, all-around great guy. I am also thankful to Brian Boyd, Mrs. Hyun-Sook Han, Mrs. Sang-Soon Han, and of course, my mother, for opening doors for me in Korea, and to Professor Ok-Ju Lee of Seoul Women’s University for taking excellent care of me while I was there.
The Sinunus—Karen, Mike, Chris, and Matt—for giving me a beautiful space in which I wrote the final pieces of this book. Quang Bao and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop have always been there for me whenever I needed a shoulder, or a little shove.
Thanks to the awesome folks at Beacon, Helene Atwan, my editor extraordinaire, and the rest of Team Beacon: Kathy Daneman, Tom Hallock, Joy Kim, Pamela MacColl, Lisa Sacks, Christopher Vyce, and all the hard-working sales reps. Lots of love to Charlotte Sheedy and Carolyn Kim—thanks for keeping the faith over the long haul.
Thanks always to my family, Lees and Jacobys, to Karl, my first and last reader, partner in crime, keeper of my heart.