Q&A with Rosa Kwon Easton

  

 

Photo by Karin Fuire

 

Rosa Kwon Easton is the author of the new novel Red Seal. She also has written the novel White Mulberry. Also a lawyer, she lives in Southern California. 

 

Q: What do you see as the relationship between Red Seal and your novel White Mulberry?

 

A: Red Seal stands alone, but it is also a sequel to White Mulberry. It continues the story of Miyoung, inspired by my Korean grandmother, which follows a young girl who escapes to Japan to avoid an arranged marriage and to further her education, only to find herself in a society rife with anti-Korean sentiment.

 

In Red Seal, Miyoung and her young son, Ko-chan, inspired by my father, return to Korea to reclaim their heritage and start a new life, only to face the end of WWII, the Korean War, and the aftermath.

 

These characters and their intertwined lives develop over decades and across nations in Red Seal. The themes of identity, culture, and belonging echo in both books.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I conducted numerous interviews with my grandmother before she passed away. I also interviewed my father, who is 90 this year, and who has been instrumental in helping me understand our family story on a deeper level.

 

The interviews of my father became the inspiration for Red Seal. The most surprising part of hearing my father’s stories was how different some of his recollections were from my grandmother’s.

 

It was the duality of their points of view that I found most compelling during this process. That’s why I chose to write a dual point of view historical novel in both the mother’s and son’s perspectives for Red Seal.

 

Of course, I conducted historical research too and read memoirs and biographies that provided glimpses into everyday life during that time. I incorporated my findings into the world I envisioned that my grandmother and father must have navigated and endured. I hope readers who read Red Seal learn something new about this period of history.

 

Q: The author Mark Sullivan called the book a “heartfelt tribute to the endurance of family bonds and the hardiness it takes to find a new place to call home.” What do you think of that description?       

 

A: I think the description is apt. I explore a family’s search for home in Red Seal, told from different family member’s perspectives.

 

How do we remember the past? How do two people remember the same event so differently? What was going on in a boy’s head, and a mother’s heart, as the world changed around them, and they had different wants and needs? What lessons about family bonds can we learn from our ancestors?

 

By considering these questions, I hoped to understand my inheritance and pass these memories and lessons of resilience to future generations.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Ko-chan and Miyoung?

 

A: There is a concept in Korea called “jeong,” or a deep, unspoken emotional bond and heartfelt attachment that builds between people over time. There is no direct English equivalent.

 

My father told me during our interviews that he didn’t feel jeong from his mother very much. She, of course, had been hardened to loss over her life, so it was difficult for her to show her emotions. I tried to show this dynamic between the mother and son: how they both loved but often misunderstood each other.

 

My grandmother and father had to communicate their feelings through letters. I was fortunate to discover some family letters written by my grandmother to my father while they were separated after the Korean War.

 

My grandmother thought they were so important that she brought them with her from Korea to the US when she immigrated here. These letters were instrumental in helping me understand their complex relationship.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am currently writing another book that is a standalone sequel to White Mulberry and Red Seal. It’s the journey of the family in my first two books after they arrive in the US.

 

The themes are similar to my previous novels but reflect the history of racial prejudice and the conflicts of assimilation in 1970s America. Read as a trilogy, this will be a final book in an epic series of one family’s journey to find home.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I will be on book tour for Red Seal throughout the fall, so please go to the Events page of my website at rosakwoneaston.com. I would love to see you at one of my stops!

 

While you’re at my website, you can sign up for my newsletter for writing updates and follow me on social media @rosakwoneaston.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Rosa Kwon Easton.