My Korean Deli
Risking It All for a Convenience Store
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4.0 • 116 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This warm and funny tale of an earnest preppy editor finding himself trapped behind the counter of a Brooklyn convenience store is about family, culture and identity in an age of discombobulation.
It starts with a gift, when Ben Ryder Howe's wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents' self-sacrifice by buying them a store. Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated. After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws' Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton's Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn at night to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets. My Korean Deli follows the store's tumultuous life span, and along the way paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership between characters with shoots across society, from the Brooklyn streets to Seoul to Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience for everyone involved as they struggle to salvage the original gift—and the family—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former senior editor of the Paris Review, Howe recounts his stint as owner and beleaguered worker of a Brooklyn deli in this touching memoir. Howe and his wife, Gab, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decide to buy a deli for her parents as a gesture of goodwill for the sacrifices they have made. His mother-in-law, Kay, whom he describes as the Mike Tyson of Korean grandmothers, is gung-ho from the start, and when a store is finally purchased in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, she immediately takes charge. The work (including manipulating the devilish lottery machine) is more trying than Howe anticipated, not to mention dealing with the eccentric neighborhood characters who complain bitterly about any changes, from coffee prices to shelf rearrangements. Mostly working the night shift, Howe also maintains his position at the magazine. Both establishments are sinking ships: the deli hemorrhages money as bills pile up and revenue falters; the Review grows more disorganized, and subscribership plummets. Howe ably transforms what could have been a string of amusing vignettes about deli ownership into a humorous but heartfelt look into the complexities of family dynamics and the search for identity.
Customer Reviews
My Korean Deli
An interesting and fun read from beginning to end.
Book to relate to
A really good book. I related to a lot of the story being an Italian American married into a Korean family. The references made me laugh but they are relatable in any cross-cultural relationship. (as my friends married to other Asian backgrounds share common stories).
But overall, I related to the growth of openness and change. It is never easy to challenge your background or beliefs, but in these type of families it happens.
It was a great read.
Get you big boy pants
While the book had it's moments due to characters outside the immediate family, the book's voice rode me wrong. If you want to read a book where the main character does not take control of his life or create a decisive plan to lead his life, this is for you. The book leads you down a path where you are looking forward to some final resolution in character development and maturity only to see it delve back into indecision and the character playing the victim.