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2000s: A novel about how far we’ll go to protect our families – and our deepest secrets.
2000s: A novel about how far we’ll go to protect our families – and our deepest secrets.
In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine – a pressurised oxygen chamber that patients enter for “dives”, used as an alternative therapy for conditions including autism and infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos’ small community.
Who or what caused the explosion? Was it the mother of one of the patients, who claimed to be sick that day but was smoking down by the creek? Or was it Young and Pak themselves, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? The ensuing trial uncovers unimaginable secrets from that night: trysts in the woods, mysterious notes, child-abuse charges, as well as tense rivalries and alliances among a group of people driven to extraordinary degrees of desperation and sacrifice.
Miracle Creek is a small town, fictional but about an hour’s drive from Washington DC. The town of Annadale is mentioned as being a draw for the Korean population and is often described as being where many new immigrants go and settle.
The town where the subsequent courtroom trial takes place is Pineberg and this is also fictional. In fact place is not important in this novel. What is, is the story of immigrants, families and children. There are some heartbreaking scenes about the treatment of chikdren in this novel so readers should be aware.
Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek is a thoroughly contemporary take on the courtroom drama, drawing on the author’s own life as a Korean immigrant, former trial lawyer, and mother of a real-life “submarine” patient.
Destination: Virginia, “Miracle Creek” Author/guide: Angie Kim Departure: 2000s
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