Divided into four sections and an epilogue, the book allows several family members to weigh in on the shared crisis, often in an intimate second-person narration: “You all blamed each other for Mom’s going missing, and you all felt wounded.” Chi-hon, the elder daughter and now a noted novelist, comes first, followed by elder son Hyong-chol, then the father and, ultimately, the missing Park So-nyo herself. These accumulating voices form a kind of instrumental suite, each segment joined by the same melody of family nostalgia, guilt and apology, and each occasionally plucking away at several larger motifs: country vs. city living, illiteracy vs. education, arranged marriages vs. modern dating, traditions vs. new freedoms.