The Shape of My Eyes
A Memoir of Race, Faith, and Finding Myself
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Jul 23, 2024
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- $13.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A touching, humorous account of the author’s cultural reckoning with his Korean heritage and hidden family secrets.
A surprising diagnosis of PTSD led Dave Gibbons to look to his past for clues to explain the unexpected result.
Born to an American soldier and a Korean mother in the wake of the Korean War, Dave has spent his life struggling to blend his Korean roots and his very American upbringing. The family joins a conservative church that embraces a strict, rule-based faith, and they try to navigate life as one of the few mixed-raced families in their community. But when tragedy strikes, tearing the family apart, Dave is forced to face long- buried secrets that he can no longer ignore.
As he explores his family’s difficult past, he confronts his own pain and the persistent feelings of not quite fitting in either in America or his mother’s home country. And when a DNA test ultimately reveals a truth that shatters everything he understood about his history, he begins the journey to reconcile his American upbringing with his deep Korean roots, and he is forced to confront the traumas he unknowingly carried.
The Shape of My Eyes beautifully weaves historic reference points of the oppression and discrimination against Asian Americans with Dave’s own personal story. Dave’s wrestling with belonging in his family, in America, and in the church creates a raw, thought-provoking memoir about race, religion and finding home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leadership coach Gibbons debuts with a sincere account of the challenges of growing up between cultures. Born to a Korean mother and an American father in Maryland, Gibbons worshipped American culture and was eager to "fit in," despite looking "100% Korean." After a fire destroyed their home when Gibbons was 10, the family moved to Arizona. There, they entered a church community of "mostly blue-collar hardcore fundamentalist believers," sparking Gibbons's complicated relationship with conservative Christianity, which peaked when he attended a Christian college whose prohibitions against interracial dating were "absurdly inconsistent with what I knew about God." Souring on Christian fundamentalism, Gibbons broke with the church as an adult and in 1994 helped found Newsong Church in Irvine, Calif., as a "haven" for those who felt like "outsiders" from Christianity. While the sections on Newsong's founding are somewhat rushed and a climactic revelation pertaining to Gibbons's family may leave readers with a sense of whiplash, the questions about what it means to be both a Christian and part of a "third culture"—not entirely Korean and not entirely American—are salient. It's an intriguing look at the intersections of race, identity, and faith.
