The Queen of Tears

"McKinney vividly recreates Seoul during the Korean War from the beat-up cars made of beer cans to the affluent homes lined with fish ponds and grape vines. . . . It's a technically skillful achievement in a story deceptively disguised as a slim, fast read."-Honolulu Weekly

By age 14 she was on her own, fleeing the communists, a waif living in the streets of Seoul, begging from American soldiers and stealing food. Her mother, a Korean peasant forced into sex slavery by Japanese occupiers, was long dead. Then Fate intervened: she was hit by a car. The driver, a prominent filmmaker, took her in and mentored her into an acting career, capitalizing on her natural beauty. By age nineteen, Park Soong Nan was the brightest star of Korean cinema, an Asian Elizabeth Taylor. They called her "The Queen of Tears."

Many years later her three grown children and their families are settled in Hawaii and she, the matriarch, comes to visit. Indomitable and irascible, Soong's large presence seems catalytic, setting off smoldering jealousies, dormant longings, and the unending contest for primacy in her affection.

The Queen of Tears is a story about an Asian American family's struggle with Old World ways in the multicultural new world of Honolulu.