Close to 1000 audience members crowded into Cahn Auditorium Wednesday evening to listen to author and musical artist Michelle Zauner’s One Book Keynote.
Zauner is the lead vocalist for Grammy-nominated alternative pop band Japanese Breakfast and the author of New York Times best-seller “Crying in H Mart,” this year’s One Book selection. The memoir focuses on Zauner’s relationship with her mother and explores themes of biracial identity, memory and love.
During the talk — moderated by history Prof. Ji-Yeon Yuh — Zauner touched on everything from how her grief management has evolved throughout her writing to her favorite things to cook. Zauner said she uses writing to understand her own feelings, but her work also resonated with many others in different ways.
“I think this book is really a love letter to my mom,” Zauner said. “When you write for yourself, you end up writing for so many people.”
Students and other attendees said they appreciated the relatability of Zauner’s memoir, particularly her focus on grief and tumultuous family relationships.
In his introduction at the event, University President Michael Schill said the book was “a surprisingly personal experience,” as he previously lived in Eugene, Oregon — one of the main settings of the book — and recently lost his mother.
Ph.D. candidate Donnisa Edmonds said she appreciated hearing about Zauner’s experiences –– both as a musician and as an author.
“I feel like the way she writes about grief is really relatable,” Edmonds said. “I was getting on the bus, and I teared up. I was like, ‘wow she’s crying in H Mart, I’m crying on the bus.’”
Zauner discussed how college was the first time she learned to truly appreciate her mother. She hopes that students and young adults call their mother after reading the book and have a newfound appreciation for their relationships with their parents, she said.
Communication freshman Breanna Lee said Zauner’s presentation was comforting and made her think of her mom. As a student from South Korea, Lee said Zauner’s upcoming project, a book about her experiences living in South Korea and learning Korean that she will write in 2024, made her think of her future.
“The way she’s exploring … what it’s like being an adult really resonated with me,” Lee said.
Zauner said her grief, while impossibly painful, has shown her how much she loves her mother.
Zauner told The Daily the book needed to be as “emotionally ragged” as it was in the period of her grief that she wrote it, but in the future she will continue writing about her mother in a more collected way. She also said everyone has a different relationship with their mother, so it is a special relationship to investigate.
“I guess (mother-daughter relationships are) something that many people can relate to and have personal and intense feeling towards,” Zauner told The Daily.
Zauner told the audience she feels like an outsider in both the United States and South Korea, leaving her with a “desperate desire to be understood and to feel a sense of belonging,” which she finds in creative spaces. She highlighted how writing allows her to bridge a connection to her audience.
“We all belong to each other in some way, and that’s really beautiful,” she said.
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Twitter: @chiarafkim
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