Step back in time to the summer of 1969. In her latest novel, Ahn Love, Frances Park weaves a dreamy and heart-wrenching tale that begins on a daughter’s visit to her ninety-year-old father and quickly transports us to a fateful seven-day cruise across the Pacific.
It is a story of ‘Monkey’—a lovesick teenager witnessing the quiet unraveling of her family amidst the glittering decks and restless seas. From first stirrings of romance to the fragile beauty of memory, here is an exclusive first look at the opening chapter of Ahn Love.
Like every home in Blue Stone, the Ahn family residence was a stunning wreck, so deeply buried in the neighbourhood that after taking the third or fourth curve in, there was no turning back; imaginary ghost-gates clanged, banged, and locked behind me, and I got the feeling I was here for the winter, like it or not. Were it true, my father would do his little dance one more time and never let me go. A happy jig, a cha-cha-cha.
Say his famous last words: ‘You can write here! It’s not too late!’ I never had the heart to tell him that the dream, like his jig, died with Mommy. Now it was his dream, not mine.
But let’s backtrack to the ghost-gates that began this knotted string of fantasy; there were none and I wasn’t staying for the winter. Having packed only enough for the weekend, I planned to race back to New York on Monday for an early morning Tuesday meeting at work, my other reality, and was only here long enough to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and present Sam Ahn with a token gift he would accept like the gentleman and scholar he was, at birth and at ninety.
But that wasn’t what my widowed father, who lit up at my visits and dimmed when I left, wanted to hear.
Whenever I was home—and in every realm that mattered, Blue Stone would always be home—I found myself wishing things were different. The scope of everything; past, present, tomorrow, if there was one. Would fall asleep in a wink if my dad would make room for Uncle Bong in his heart and in his house. Just like the old days.
That said, I knew better than to bring up a younger brother who long lived under his wing. Sam Ahn was crowned First Son, and he felt that duty deeply. He was his protector, forever. But that was then, before his wing was broken and their legacy destroyed. Before the Whisper that marked the end—mysterious to me, haunting if I let it. The last time I’d brought up Uncle Bong seemed to crater him. My father’s eyes grew perilous with betrayal. Can’t forgive, can’t forget.
He’s dead to me.
Bull. Don’t even tell me the love isn’t there. Even after half a century, Ahn love never dies.
Half a century of secrets. One final chance to heal. Discover the truth behind this family saga. Pre-order Ahn Love today.
