by Nicole Yurcaba
Here at Sage Cigarettes, we are wrapping up our Pride Month features, and we hope you’ve enjoyed the books and writers we’ve highlighted this month. If you have a book you’d like to see featured here in Sage Reviews, you are always welcome to contact me at the email listed on the website. Meanwhile, we hope that you carry the acceptance and inclusivity we at Sage Cigarettes model with you throughout the remainder of 2023. As book reviews editor and coordinator of Sage Cigarettes writer outreach, I have a feeling we’re going to need safe spaces like Sage Cigarettes more and more as 2024 approaches.
And speaking of safe spaces, Gina Chung’s novel Sea Change became one for me as I navigated transitioning academic jobs, processing my emotions regarding the war in Ukraine, and reckoning with the various personal losses I’ve endured since 2022. Sea Change is the story of Ro, who just entered her thirties and is grappling with estrangement from her mother and her boyfriend’s decision to join a Mars-bound mission. Ro works at a mall aquarium, where she has bonded over the years with Delores, a giant Pacific octopus. Delores is a unique facet of Ro’s life, because Delores is the last remaining link to Ro’s father, a marine biologist who disappeared in the treacherous Bering Vortex during Ro’s teenage years. Meanwhile, climate change drives private investors to buy unique sea creatures like Delores for their personal aquariums. When Ro faces losing Delores to a private investor, the sudden prospect of another upheaval in Ro’s life causes Ro to reassess her relationship with her mother, deal with her childhood trauma, and reestablish her relationship with her childhood best friend, Yoonhee.
In many ways, Sea Change is a bit of a Millennial and post-Millennial anthem. It captures the two generations’ diversity: Ro is a young Korean American woman whose parents came to the US so her father could study. Ro’s mother resents the couple’s decision to leave Korea, and her mother is not afraid to let Ro or her father know it. Thus, Ro navigates her rather privileged American upbringing while family uses the Korean language and maintains Korean culture at home. Ro’s multicultural experience captures that of many Millennials and post-Millennials, given that, currently, Millennials comprise the most diverse adult group in the US, and, as of 2019, comprised 45% of minorities.
Sea Change also addresses the economic tumult many Millennials and post-Millennials continue to face in a post-Covid world. Readers can infer that Sea Change is set in a future ravaged by climate change where Mars is humanity’s last hope. However, the economic prospects for college grads like Ro are not much better than the ones Millennials and post-Millennials encounter today. Ro endures a low-paying job with few advancement opportunities not only because it is what’s available to her, but also because the job at the mall aquarium holds sentimental value for her. Her father worked at the aquarium, and Ro, despite her mother’s objections, spent time with him at the aquarium when he was alive. Thus, Ro’s family’s complexities blend with her professional ones, and Ro’s character sheds insight on two major issues with which Millennials deal–major depression and increased alcohol usage.
Ro is no stranger to alcohol. In fact, she frequently reflects about how Tae, her Mars-bound ex-boyfriend, responded to her overdrinking. One of Ro’s favorite post-work habits is to indulge in sharktini’s (“Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeno”). Ro’s drinking grows progressively worse throughout the novel, and readers can easily identify how her drinking is a coping mechanism for her emotions regarding her father’s disappearance, the break-up with Tae, and her strained mother-daughter relationship. In the context of Millennial behavioral health, Ro serves merely as a stark example: nearly one-third of Millennials suffer from some type of behavioral health issue, and Millennials are significantly more likely to experience depression than their elders.
Nonetheless, Sea Change is anything but a sit-back-and-watch-the-calamity-unfold type of novel. Yes, readers see Ro’s emotional decline in the novel. However, they also see her find the strength and willpower to change, on her own, at her own pace, and on her own terms. Ro’s transformation actually begins with a simple act–she begins making origami. Ro crafts one piece of origami for each day she goes without drinking. The act of making origami gives way to other acts which gradually transform Ro’s bad habits into better ones: she begins dating; she becomes involved in Yoonhee’s wedding plans; she makes an effort to reconnect with her mother; she quits her job at the aquarium, despite the professional uncertainty awaiting her. And, uncertainty is something each individual faces and deals with. It is, perhaps, one of life’s greatest spices. Ro’s character serves as a positive role model regarding how to embrace uncertainty as an opportunity for change– a change that’s ultimately for the better.
Thematically, Sea Change resonates with Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, which features a life-saving octopus named Marcellus. Environmentally, it addresses the climate change crisis by presenting to readers what the world may look like if humanity doesn’t heed the warnings of scientists across the globe. Thus, it finds its rightful, necessary place with 2023 nonfiction releases such as Sabrina Imbler’s How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures. Regardless of why readers come to Sea Change, whether it’s because of the amazing cover or because Ro’s story is theirs, Chung’s debut novel is raw, enticing, and jaggedly glorious.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба–Nikola Yurtsaba) is a Ukrainian (Hutsul/Lemko) American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, West Trade Review, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and is a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and The Southern Review of Books.
