O Beautiful

From the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, a lyrical, emotionally resonant novel following a Korean-American journalist on assignment in the oil fields of North Dakota as she confronts her former hometown and the ghosts of her past.

Written in Jung Yun's gorgeous and precise prose, O Beautiful follows Elinor Hanson, a Korean-American journalist and former model who, as the novel opens, is embarking on her first major magazine assignment to the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, a small town two hours from where she and her sister grew up. Elinor's career as a freelance writer is just getting off the ground, after she booked modeling jobs for as long as she could. When her former graduate school mentor Richard hands off this potentially career-changing article with the prestigious Standard, she assumes it's because of her North Dakota history. But as the novel develops a deeper story unspools about Richard, and the town itself, as the novel elegantly explores issues of race and gender through Elinor's eyes. Woven throughout is the story of a missing woman, whose disappearance raises dark questions of a boomtown overrun with men and outsiders. As she delves deeper into her assignment, Elinor also must confront her own troubled family history and her own place in a beautiful, but troubled land.

From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America

Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family's estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she's trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world.

With spare and graceful prose, O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman's attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.

A New York Times Editors' Choice Book

From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America.

Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers.

Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family's estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she's trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world.

With spare and graceful prose, Jung Yun's O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman's attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.