Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Publishers - Faber and Faber Ltd.
I received this book courtesy of Netgalley.
Description
Two families.
One desperate to remember, the other to forget.
Will the truth burn them both?
Grace Park and Shawn Mathews share a city – Los Angeles - but seemingly little else. Coming from different generations and very different communities, their paths wouldn’t normally cross at all. As Grace battles confusion over her elder sister’s estrangement from their Korean-immigrant parents, Shawn tries to help his cousin Ray readjust to city life after years spent in prison.
But something in their past links these two families. As the city around them threatens to erupt into violence, echoing the worst days of the early 1990s, the lives of Grace and Shawn are set to collide in ways which will change them all forever.
Beautifully written, and marked by its aching humanity as much as its growing sense of dread, Your House Will Pay is a powerful and urgent novel for today.
Review
This is a special book, one that you will keep thinking back to after you have long finished it. It is an elevated form of a crime fiction novel, one that is also a social commentary of the times that we live in. This is one of the best books which I have read this year.
The narrative is divided by two different perspectives - Shawn, the brother of the victim, and Grace the daughter of the killer. Each character has their version of the racial divides in this unique set of circumstances. The characters that Steph has created are nuanced and authentic. Each and every character are fully formed in your mind as you are reading the book, something which makes the story more impactful in my humble opinion.
This is an incredibly powerful book. At times it leaves you speechless and is a great commentary on the racial divides which still permeate society today. This book has stayed with me ever since I read it, one of the reasons it has taken me so long to complete this review as I don’t think I can do it justice.
Talking Points
It wasn’t until I was reading the acknowledgment section that I realised that this was inspired on actual events which had taken place in Los Angelas. On the 16th of March 1991 a 15 year old girl, Latasha Harlins, walked into a liquor market to buy some orange juice and fought with the owner as they believed that she was stealing. As Latasha turned round the owner, Soon Ja Du, got a gun and shot Latasha in the back of the head. The whole thing was caught on video but Du whilst being convicted never faced any jail time.
The CCTV can be viewed on the internet if you desire - I know wish I hadn’t watched it. But is that because I don’t want to have to confront that there is this violence, racism and prejudice in the world? Maybe it is. However, this is an important issue and people need to be made aware of situations like this. Whilst researching for this review I came across this website https://www.alovesongforlatasha.com. It’s a short documentary which was released to critical acclaim and I will definitely be looking out for screenings coming to the UK.
This novel and real life story would be an amazing pick for book clubs out there and I will be recommending it to the ones that I attend.
