With Once the Shore, Paul Yoon delivers an astonishing debut of linked short stories set on a South Korean island.

Spanning over half a century—from the years just before the Korean War to the present—the eight stories in this collection reveal an intricate and unforgettable portrait of a single place in its entirety. An elderly couple embark on a fishing boat in a harrowing journey to find their son, hoping that he has survived a bombing in the Pacific. A Japanese orphaned woman's past revisits her with devastating consequences in a wartime hospital. A case of mistaken identity compels a husband and wife to question the foundation upon which their lives have been built. An AWOL American soldier finds refuge in a small farming community, unknowingly endangering its inhabitants. And in the celebrated title story, a horrific accident at sea becomes the catalyst for an unlikely friendship between an American widow and a young waiter at a coastal resort.

These stories capture, with lyrical precision, the moments in which lives shift and unravel—where loss is ultimately turned into a search for reconciliation, and where the silences that pass between lovers and siblings, between parents and their children, are as powerful as the reverberations of war.

Contents:

• Once the Shore
• Among the Wreckage
• Faces to the Fire
• So That They Do Not Hear Us
• The Woodcarver's Daughter
• Look for Me in the Camphor Tree
• And We Will Be Here
• The Hanging Lanterns of Ido