For readers of Crying in H Mart and Minor Feelings as well as lovers of the film Minari comes a "scorchingly honest…hugely evocative memoir" (Helen Macdonald, New York Times bestselling author of H Is for Hawk) about the daughter of ambitious Asian American immigrants and her search for self-worth.
A daughter of Korean immigrants, Hyeseung Song spends her earliest years in the cane fields of Texas where her loyalties are divided between a restless father in search of Big Money, and a beautiful yet domineering mother whose resentments about her own life compromises her relationship with her daughter. With her parents at constant odds, Song learns more words in Korean for hatred than love. When the family's fake Gucci business lands them in bankruptcy, Song moves to a new elementary school. On her first day, a girl asks the teacher: "Can she speak English?"
Neither rich nor white, Song does what is necessary to be visible: she internalizes the model minority myth as well as her beloved mother's dreams to see her on a secure path. Song meets these expectations by attending the best Ivy League universities in the country. But when she wavers, in search of an artistic life on her own terms, her mother warns, "Happiness is what unexceptional people tell themselves when they don't have the talent and drive to go after real success." Years of self-erasure take a toll on Song as she experiences recurring episodes of depression and mania. A thought repeats: I want to die. I want to die. Song enters a psychiatric hospital where she meets patients with similar struggles. So begins her sweeping journey to heal herself by losing everything.
"A celebration of resilience and a testament to the power of art to heal and transform" (Chloé Cooper Jones, two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and author of Easy Beauty), Docile is one woman's story of subverting the model minority myth, contending with mental illness, and finding her self-worth by looking within. Hyeseung Song is a first-generation Korean American writer and painter. She lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York. Visit her website at HyeseungSong.com. "Hyeseung Song narrates her memoir with a rhythm that balances her poetry with the hardships she experienced as the daughter of Korean immigrants. Early on, she expresses her discomfort with the dichotomy between her father's get-rich-quick schemes and her mother's endless work to support his whims. In painful vignettes, Song details the narrow views of Texas teachers, peers, and parents who continually point out her poverty and ethnicity as she struggles to form her identity. Song's expressiveness allows listeners to imagine the tension she felt at trying to live up to her mother's expectations and her eventual understanding of how depression and minority myths turned her into someone who cannot be the stereotypical perfect daughter. Ultimately, courage shines through Song's words as she discovers the joy of making art."
Hyeseung Song narrates her memoir with a rhythm that balances her poetry with the hardships she experienced as the daughter of Korean immigrants. Early on, she expresses her discomfort with the dichotomy between her father's get-rich-quick schemes and her mother's endless work to support his whims. In painful vignettes, Song details the narrow views of Texas teachers, peers, and parents who contin
