The Last Story of Mina Lee

The Last Story of Mina Lee is a 2020 novel by Los Angeles-born author Nancy Jooyoun Kim. It tells the story of a woman’s investigation into the death of her mother. The novel alternates between third-person narrations featuring Mina and Margot at different times in their lives. Kim explores themes of immigration, the limits of the American Dream, and the shortcomings of language, racism, and family dynamics. The Last Story of Mina Lee was a New York Times best seller and a Reese’s Book Club pick.

Plot Summary

Margot is 26 years old when the novel begins. Her mother has not been answering her phone calls. Margot goes to Los Angeles with her friend Miguel, who is moving there for work. When they visit Mina’s apartment in Koreatown, they find Mina dead on the floor. Authorities rule the death accidental, but Margot suspects there might be more to the story. When she speaks to the landlord, he tells her that there was yelling coming from her mother’s apartment the weekend of her death.

Margot’s sections alternate with Mina’s recollections of her first year in Los Angeles. She left Korea after the war, and after her husband and daughter died in a freak car accident. In America, she works stocking shelves at a supermarket, where she falls in love with Mr. Kim, one of the cashiers. Mina is hesitant to begin the relationship because she associates emotional closeness with pain and loss. She has already lost her country, her parents, and her husband and child.

One day, Mr. Kim catches Mr. Park—the supermarket’s predatory owner—trying to rape Lupe, an undocumented worker from Mexico. Mr. Kim stops the assault, and because Mr. Park has criminal connections, Mr. Kim is forced to flee to Chicago to avoid retribution. He doesn’t feel safe taking Mina with him, or staying with her, because then Mr. Park might consider her a threat as well. His disappearance devastates Mina. Mr. Kim reenters Mina’s life 26 years after his disappearance. He is dying of stomach cancer and wants to help her find her parents, who were separated from her in the war.

As Margot investigates her mother’s death, she finds an obituary of a man named Chang-hee Kim. She learns that her mother went to the Grand Canyon with a boyfriend in the months before her death. Eventually she learns that Mr. Kim is her father. Margot ultimately learns that Mrs. Baek—her mother’s friend and housemate—pushed Mina during a conversation about Mr. Park. Mr. Park had been stalking Mrs. Baek. Mina showed Mrs. Baek a gun that Mr. Kim gave her 26 years prior. Mina only wanted to show her how to use it. Mrs. Baek reacted badly, remembering when her abusive husband once pointed a gun at her. She pushed Mina away, causing her to fall, hit her head, and die. It was an accident after all.

At the novel’s conclusion, Margot learns that her grandmother is still alive. She decides to move to Los Angeles and pursues the happy life that her mother never could. She goes to the pier where Mina and Mr. Kim had their first date and makes a phone call. A woman who is probably Mina’s grandmother answers in Korean.