A Living Remedy : : a Memoir

Locations
Call Number: 921 Chung, Nicole, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Chung, Nicole
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	Due 03-23-2026
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / General / Chung, Nicole	4-week checkout	On Shelf

"From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of class, inequality, and grief-a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost. In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them. When Nicole Chung graduated from high school, she couldn't hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found a sense of community she had always craved as an Asian American adoptee - and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in - where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations - looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of financial instability and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his premature death. And then the unthinkable happens - less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as Covid descends upon the world. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another - and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and tragic inequalities in American society"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING submitted by czadams on August 16, 2025, 11:40pm Nicole Chung’s A Living Remedy: A Memoir is an extraordinary and deeply moving account of grief, love, and the injustices that shape families and lives in contemporary America. The book chronicles the devastating loss of Chung’s adoptive parents, poignantly tracing the lasting imprints of family bonds while tackling issues of class, inequality, and the failings of the U.S. health care system. Chung, a Korean American adoptee raised in a white family in rural Oregon, brings profound insight and empathy to her exploration of personal and systemic loss.

From the first page, Chung’s prose is clear-eyed and lyrical, immersing the reader in the intimacy of her experiences. Her story begins with her father’s death from conditions worsened by his lack of adequate access to consistent medical care—a loss compounded by the subsequent passing of her mother to cancer, all unfolding during the isolating backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Her grief is not merely individual; it is laced with fury and frustration at the systemic disparities—poverty, lack of safety nets, and inaccessible health care—that contributed to her parents’ suffering and untimely deaths.

What truly makes A Living Remedy remarkable is its dual focus: Chung’s searing personal mourning expands into a broader social critique. She exposes how the unpredictable safety nets and class disparities of America shape lives and limit possibilities for families like hers. Her meditation on the specific, hollow guilt of “those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them” is both a confession and a challenge to the myth of the American Dream. Her reflections underline the pain of distance—not only geographic, as she makes a life on the East Coast away from her childhood home, but social and economic, as she sees how her parents’ circumstances shaped their fate.

Chung’s talent lies in making her private loss universally resonant. The memoir’s movement between past and present, between Oregon and the East Coast, between belonging and otherness, renders the narrative emotionally rich and relatable. Whether confronting the unique dynamics of transracial adoption, the alienation of class mobility, or the pressure-cooker of pandemic-era bereavement, Chung’s voice is both vulnerable and fiercely honest, offering a “transcendent” meditation on how we carry the memory of our loved ones and the unfinished work of justice.

Ultimately, A Living Remedy is a testament to the power of storytelling—to transform grief into action, rage into clarity, and loss into connection. It is a book that will stay with readers long after they finish the last page, inviting them to reflect not just on their own families and stories of care but also on the structures that shape our lives and deaths. Chung’s memoir affirms that through remembrance and witness, one finds not just solace but purpose. This book is nothing short of astonishing—a must-read for anyone seeking truth and hope in the face of heartbreak.