The pastor was an amateur photographer, and on one occasion was standing with his camera on the very edge of the Grand Canyon. Elizabeth tells how she was tempted to give him a sharp push, and was only prevented when her daughter, who she was carrying on her back, woke up. She didn't want to give her own child a traumatic memory of the kind she had grown up with.
When she decided to leave her husband, taking the child with her, her adopted parents were unexpectedly supportive. Adultery to them was a sin, and divorce because of it had Biblical justification.
The home she set up with the child was a re-creation of the one she had first known in Korea, frugal but full of fun, and in the lap of nature. She got a poorly-paid job as a reporter on a local newspaper, but at least was allowed to take her child in to work.
One night, however, a man she had been investigating turned up at her home when she was alone. The rape, and the subsequent abortion, must have seemed relatively minor events after the horrors that preceded them. They are certainly given little space in the narrative.
Gradually she progressed to better-paid jobs. Today she lives as a journalist and poet in the San Francisco Bay area, happy in the multicultural ambiance, and in the personal freedom she is able to enjoy.
Causes of abuse
What you learn from this book is that the abuse of women by men has many causes. Sometimes it's erotic pleasure in causing pain, sometimes the pleasure of exerting power, and sometimes the expression of a husband's frustration at the trap that marriage has caught him in.
"Honor killings" (considered as murders in all modern societies), and the intolerance of sexual "crimes," similarly appear to be products of a fear of freedom, and the unimaginable choices and responsibilities that would come with it.
This book sometimes appears plain and unanalytical, but this is actually its virtue and essential quality. Its candor is what makes for such an absorbing read.
Life, say the Buddhists, consists of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows. It would appear that Ms Kim's portion of sorrow is by now complete. We can only hope her joys are only just beginning.
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