Jung Yun's third novel, All the World Can Hold, is a distinctive 9/11 story. Set on a cruise departing Boston for Bermuda on September 16, 2001, it spotlights three characters who--like the country in the wake of terrorism--face a turning point. Choosing whether to be true to themselves requires reckoning with past traumas, including bereavement, alcoholism, and racist microaggressions.
Korean American lawyer Franny hasn't told anyone that she was caught up in 9/11, sheltering inside a bank and then wandering dust-choked streets. When she reached her husband, Tom, by phone afterward, she lied that she'd slept late and was at home when the planes hit. She insisted on going ahead with this family trip to mark her mother's 70th birthday (chilsun) and recent retirement from running a Korean restaurant. Ever since the deaths of her father and older brother in a car accident when she was eight, Franny has been desperate for her mother's approval, fearing she can't live up to the role of substitute eldest child.
A subset of passengers was lured in by a Starlight Voyages reunion. Sixty-two-year-old Doug played the ship's bartender on the 1970s-'80s cult television classic and became infamous for drunken debauches on and off set. He signed up to please his agent--and he needs the cash after years lost to alcoholism and mental illness. He pops Xanax to cope with fawning middle-aged fans, a grueling schedule of appearances, and the fact that his best friend from the cast, Peter, is dead.
Lucy is getting her PhD in computer science from MIT, but her true passion is art. Her wealthy roommate, Mariah, offered her a free ticket, and the cruise is a welcome distraction as she awaits second interviews with tech companies. For once there's time for her painting, but she can't ignore her parents' expectation that she secure a high-paying job soon. As the only Black woman in her department, she feels she must go above and beyond to prove herself.
Yun (Shelter; O Beautiful) orchestrates only subtle connections between the protagonists here. Instead, as she reveals in a prefatory note, she presents them as aspects of her own existential crisis on a Love Boat-themed cruise shortly after 9/11. In a time of national mourning, private sorrows still sting. Franny, Doug, and Lucy illuminate themes of survivor guilt, the price of belonging, and the hope for change in this quiet, character-driven story. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck
Shelf Talker: Jung Yun's subdued third novel, set on a cruise to Bermuda, brings together several troubled protagonists looking to change their lives for the better following 9/11.