Jid Lee, now a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University, begins this memoir with the tale of the killing of her great-great-great-great- great-great grandmother by a tiger. A Buddhist monk predicted the death, saying it would bring rewards to her descendants. Her "sacrifice" is the touchstone for the family's existence, its social position, and the ongoing battle between East and West that categorizes much of Korea's history.

A personal, familial and national memoir, this book moves from the (not so) niceties of hierarchy at Korean mealtimes to Korea's labyrinthine politics. Redolent with the smells of the marketplace, dripping with the sleazy glamour of prostitutes and hoodlums, Lee conjures up a country full of excitement and danger in contrast and comparison with a childhood dominated by hunger and familial bullying. The weaving of Korea's relationships with America and Japan into the narrative of everyday Korean life — the stoning of unwanted babies, sibling cruelty, rice farming, arranged marriages — is deftly handled. The military similes for the everyday life of a poor family trying to make ends meet, struggling with a corrupt American-supported government and secretly supporting Korean reunification are cleverly used.

Lee is particularly astute when writing about the Korean War, delving into its long and complicated incubation, the shattering of families, the imprisonment and torture of leftwing dissidents (including the author's father) and the crushing by the American government of traditional Korean grassroots socialism. This all began back in 1908, when Japan suggested to Russia that they divide Korea along the 38th parallel. History tells us that did not happen; Jid Lee gives us her version of events since that date.