Finalist for the 2024 Maya Angelou Book Award
Named a Best Book of the Year by ELLE and Real Simple
From the critically acclaimed author of If You Leave Me and recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award—a stunning work of great emotional power that reveals a dark corner of South Korean history through the eyes of a small community struggling to survive in a reformatory center.
Purchase at Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, HarperCollins, Apple Books or wherever books are sold.
“Courageous… Haunting and elegiac, “The Stone Home” is fearless in its clear-eyed recounting. It asks readers to consider our own secret histories, to allow hard truths to be heard and, in so doing, to never let such barbarity happen again.”
“Author Kim’s superb writing is subtle, elliptical, and demanding of close attention. The Stone Home aims to break down the self-protective distance that forms when one learns about a tragedy, to move the reader beyond thinking and into feeling. It succeeds. ”
— Washington Independent Review of Books
“Visceral, brutal, but beautiful in its precision and care… An important read.”
— ELLE
“Heart-stopping… Kim’s powerful novel stays in the memory long after reading.”
— Asian Review of Books
“Crystal Hana Kim is a uniquely talented and sensitive storyteller.”
— SF Chronicle
“Riveting… Thrilling… Kim’s writing is thoroughly engaging while also managing to educate readers regarding a brutal atrocity in Korea’s timeline.”
— Conde Nast Traveler
“Propulsive.”
— PEOPLE Magazine
“A gripping story about human connection and the will to survive.”
— Real Simple
“Riveting… This confirms Kim’s reputation as a formidable talent.”
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Kim’s second novel is a wrenching, haunting read as her breathtaking storytelling provides indelible testimony to witness and behold.”
— Booklist, Starred Review
“Wrenching… Another well-crafted tale by Kim that is certain to give readers much to talk about.”
— Library Journal, Starred Review
“A poignant, heartfelt book… ignites into a searing portrait of survival. A novel that explores how the historical moment and the nature of power shape our lives.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Crystal Hana Kim brings to life a forgotten moment in South Korean history with haunting and cinematic beauty. Stone Home‘s portrait of humanity is both brutal but also illuminated with hope.”
— Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings
“With ferocity as well as tremendous tenderness and psychological insight, Crystal Hana Kim brilliantly bears witness to shocking state-sanctioned brutality in 1980s South Korea while telling a universally resonant story . . . Haunting and suspenseful, The Stone Home dares its characters, and readers, to hope.”
— Jessamine Chan, New York Times bestselling author of The School for Good Mothers
“In a place designed to obliterate love and courage, both find their truest forms. This is the truth The Stone Home bears, and what a wrenching, transformative truth it is.”
— Megha Majumdar, bestselling author of A Burning
“Through her luminous talent, perfect prose, and unwavering narrative might, Crystal Hana Kim transforms a difficult historical moment into a moving portrait of generational strife and familial devotion. To what extent will we go to protect the ones we love? To protect the truth? The human heart is fallible yet also miraculous in what it can endure. Here is a book that entwines the stories of many into one collective, beating heart.”
— Weike Wang, award-winning author of Chemistry
“Crystal Hana Kim serves up immersive descriptions so visceral I can hear the characters breathing, taste the crunch of radish and hot fish stew, feel their physical aches and unbearable longing. This is a powerful story that shows us how courage can be summoned in the bleakest of surroundings.”
— Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name
“Crystal Hana Kim did not come to play. The Stone Home is a work of historical fiction that unearths a tragedy and illuminates the human cost. What do governments do with the powerless and the poor? How does anyone survive the heartlessness of the state? This compelling, challenging novel does not flinch from hardships, but it also shines a light on human resilience and love. A powerful novel.”
— Victor LaValle, author of Lone Women
“Impressive, multi-layered, and haunting; choral in its unflinching, realistic, yet heartfelt account of state-sanctioned violence. A necessary read.”
— Nafissa Thompson-Spires, award-winning author of Heads of the Colored People
“Crystal Hana Kim is one of today’s most exquisite writers. Her beautiful words tell a brutal story of family, state, and the history walled off during our lifetimes. It’s a story we need to know, put on the page by the author we trust to tell it. Stunning, frightening, and awe-inspiring, The Stone Home is the book we have been waiting for.”
— Julia Phillips, bestselling author of Disappearing Earth
“Propulsive and unflinching, Crystal Hana Kim deftly balances the factual and emotional truths of a vivid setting and cast of characters. The Stone Home is a raw, authentic, and empathetic look at a little known piece of history–everyone should read it.”
— Sara Nović, New York Times bestselling author of True Biz
In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife—a knife Eunju hasn’t seen in more than thirty years, and that connects her to a place she’d desperately hoped to leave behind forever.
In South Korea in the 1980s, young Eunju and her mother are homeless on the street. After being captured by the police, they’re sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory center that claims to rehabilitate the nation’s citizens but hides a darker, more violent reality. While Eunju and her mother form a tight-knit community with the other women in the kitchen, two teenage brothers, Sangchul and Youngchul, are compelled to labor in the workshops and make increasingly desperate decisions—and all are forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.
Inspired by real events, told through alternating timelines and two intimate perspectives, The Stone Home is a deeply affecting story of a mother and daughter’s love and a pair of brothers whose bond is put to an unfathomably difficult test. Capturing a shameful period of history with breathtaking restraint and tenderness, Crystal Hana Kim weaves a lyrical exploration of the legacy of violence and the complicated psychology of power, while showcasing the extraordinary acts of devotion and friendship that can arise in the darkness.