when my sister was cleopatra moon

When her brother-in-law dies in a freak accident, Marcy Moon rushes to offer support and solace to her older sister Cleo. Their reunion opens the floodgates of family memory, and Marcy is forced to re-examine her childhood hero-worship for her older, glamorous sister, as well as her relationship with her strange, unassimilated mother, her own emotional affairs, and the cultural conflicts that arise from being first generation children of Korean immigrants. Like Amy Tan, Park conjures up her characters, and the clash of old and new cultures, with a faultless sense for where absurdity shades into heartbreak, and with perfect pitch for a whole range of wonderful voices. And there's a delightfully satisfying twist in the tail of the story, as we discover that our narrator - now running from her past in Indian territory in the Nevada desert - is less than reliable, and that her own weird ideas and easy sentiment are not the author's.