The nine short stories in Going Home unfold the stories of Korean immigrants and students who have made the United States their home.

In Going Home, Moon Ji Hyuck’s third story collection, the author illustrates the lives of Korean immigrants based on his own experience of living in New York as an international student. *Each story traces a journey to find “home,” the delicate process in which one seeks not just a physical place but also an emotional shelter.**

*“Air-made Biography” is the biography of Lee Hocheol written by his American son-in-law on a plane. The son-in-law, “I,” is accompanying his wife on her trip to South Korea upon learning that Hocheol is in critical condition. At first glance, the tumultuous process of making oneself home in the United States that Lee Hocheol, a first-generation immigrant, had to go through seems to epitomize the Korean immigration saga. After his wife’s death, however, despite objections from friends and family, Hocheol moved back to South Korea where he no longer had any connections. Even the biography of Hocheol, who has contracted a fatal illness in South Korea and is currently at death’s door, is written “in the air” rather than “at home.” Did he really move to Korea to find a home? Is Korea his home? Where, then, is home for Hocheol’s daughter?

The collection’s eponymous story, *“Going Home,”** fills the pages that follow. The titular “home” refers to New York. The protagonist, Hyeon, reads an ad recruiting participants for an “A.I. fiction writing experiment” offering a free ride from Chicago to New York and a cash reward of five hundred dollars, and signs himself up without hesitation. During the car ride where the experiment takes place, Hyeon answers a series of odd questions, and his answers are collected and edited by artificial intelligence to create a novel. Hyeon talks to the machine about his family and dreams, but all these stories are, in fact, fictional. Like the origami unicorn he holds onto, they do not exist in the real world, but there may still be a grain of truth in his imagined life. 

*“Pink Palace Love”** is a cruel fantasy in which an international student couple meets their exes on vacation at an old hotel. Its cruelty arises from the fact that the exes are all dead. Marriage and studying abroad have been forms of escapism for this couple, but the specters of the past continue to haunt them. The concept of stability has become a distant wish for them. 

In “The Christmas Carousel,” Emily is a twelve-year-old who was abandoned in Disney World and adopted by “my” aunt. “I” has been living with the aunt in the United States since she left home when her father remarried. On Emily’s birthday, “I” reluctantly accompanies Emily to Disney World and loses her there. Later, the story reveals that Emily had planned to be lost so that she could relive the experience of being alone in Disney World. Through this small act of deviance, Emily realizes that what her mother had done in the past was not to abandon her but to save her. Listening to Emily’s story, “I” makes peace with her father’s remarriage. Both “I” and Emily had lost “home” by losing their families, yet are determined to find new “homes” of their own.

In *“Gold Brass Laundromat,”** Young feels betrayed after realizing that a guy she met at an international students’ gathering and thought was developing a romantic relationship with has been flirting with many other international students in the same way. Still, she finds solace in a mild-mannered laundromat owner with whom she has been communicating through a series of interviews. 

*“Viewing”** tells the story of “I,” who is reminded of his difficult times as an international student by the death of Mrs. Maeng, whom “I” met in the United States three years ago.

*“Night Hawks”** depicts the unstable marriage of a poor couple studying abroad in the US and their midnight trip to a hospital. The story overlaps the eponymous painting by Edward Hopper with the portrait of marginalized people whose bleak future and lack of societal protection remain uncertain in the darkness of the night.  

*“Sunshine in the Garden”** follows the story of Neulbom, confused and nervous about her future after graduating with a master’s degree in theology. It depicts her journey to seek answers from different beliefs and identities of people, including her own, amid the skepticism and disenchantment she feels within the Christian community. 

Culminating the collection, *“Our Final Cut”** is a fictional interview of a woman returning to South Korea to inherit her late grandmother’s assets and look for her long-estranged father. 

Moon Ji Hyuck‘s work was first introduced to South Korea’s literary scene when his story “Chaser” appeared on the “Today’s Literature” page of the popular web portal Naver in 2010. He has since published the short story collections Two Days with a Lion and When We Cross the Bridge, as well as the novels Chaser, the City of P, Biblion, Beginner Korean, and Intermediate Korean.