In Inheritance, Jane Park’s brilliant story of immigration, assimilation, and sacrifice, attorney Anne Kim is living a successful life in the Big Apple after escaping small-town Canada. But when her father dies, she must return to Edmonton and confront not only myriad post-funeral duties, but also fallout from her brother’s tumultuous past, her family’s secrets, and her relationship with her now-widowed mother.

The novel offers a unique heroine: Anne represents a new generation of Korean-Canadians balancing two cultures and navigating 21st-century social pressures while attempting to honor their heritage. As a woman who’s struggled with her identity since childhood, Anne suddenly has an opportunity to gain true insight into a past about which her parents never spoke. When she finds a trove of her father’s old letters — which she must have professionally translated because she doesn’t know sufficient Korean — the discovery serves as a turning point in her life.

As Anne embarks on a journey of familial and historical rediscovery, she also blazes a new trail on the path of self-discovery: She is unhappy in her career as a tax lawyer, and she’s also unhappy in her relationship with her white boyfriend, Richard, a handsome, well-to-do fellow attorney at her firm.

While sorting out her parents’ financial affairs, her bond with Richard is severely tested. Park does an excellent job depicting the emotional and even cultural chasms that exist between the couple, but the sections concerning their relationship unfold with an emotional distance not found elsewhere. The tone changes, almost stiffens, mirroring Anne’s stalwart insistence on independence and demand for autonomy — even as the latter may cause her to lose her partner altogether.

Anne’s mettle is also tested as she deals with the ramifications of a decades-old, horrible tragedy involving her brother, Charles, who now battles alcoholism and joblessness. The event brought overwhelming shame to the family, and its fallout did lasting damage to Charles’ relationship with their father. For years, Anne has tried to repair the situation and help everyone move forward, even though it wasn’t her fault to begin with.

Despite its focus on the particulars of a single family, Inheritance is, more broadly, an examination of generational trauma on immigrant and diaspora populations. Anne’s parents both survived the Korean War, but neither ever spoke about it nor the suffering it caused. Anytime she asks her mother about the war, Anne is told that it’s in the past and that there’s no point dredging up painful memories. So hidden are the facts of her parents’ lives that it isn’t until after her father’s death that Anne learns he grew up in North Korea.

As the story progresses and Anne’s relationship with her mother cools and reshapes itself, she endeavors to hear more of her mother’s stories about the war. A beautiful moment unfolds relatively late in the narrative when Anne’s mother finally acquiesces and shares some long-suppressed details about her — and her late husband’s — past. The scene’s brevity belies its punch; readers will almost feel the melting of the generational ice.

In its open and vulnerable examination of identity and place, Inheritance echoes fictional works like An Yu’s Sunbirth and nonfiction works like Roza Nozari’s All the Parts We Exile. For women everywhere, regardless of background, Inheritance’s message about independence and being true to one’s self will feel like a manifesto for self-love and self-reclamation. Bravely vulnerable as it dissects silence, filial expectations, and displacement, the novel will linger with readers long after they’ve left its pages.

Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, Euromaidan Press, Chytomo, and the New Voice of Ukraine. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth, is available from Alien Buddha Press.