Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Joseph Hahn's debut novel,

Nuclear Family, is one of those big family epics that spans generations and touches on war and

immigration and, you know, this idea of America. And it's been getting some crazy good reviews

lately, too. Here, this is from the New York

Times review by Mateo Ascar Report. Quote, you'd have to visit Cirque to Soleil to see someone

juggle as much as Han with such effortless dexterity and tenderness. Han spoke with NPR's

BA Parker for Our Buddies over at It's Been a Minute, and he talked about what it's like to bear these ghosts of your family.

This is just a taste of their talk.

If you want more, you can find it at the It's Bit a Minute feed.

Okay, here's the interview.

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I'm your host, B.A. Parker, and our guest today just released his beautiful debut novel that moves across two seemingly unrelated places, Hawaii and the Korean Peninsula.

Nuclear family, I would summarize as a Korean stoner ghost story and a family dromedy.

It's about a Korean family in Hawaii whose plate lunch restaurant faces backlash when

Jacob gets caught attempting to cross over into North Korea through the Korean demilitarized

zone.

And so the family must struggle with questions of whether he will return and why he attempted such a crossing, not knowing that Jacob has been haunted by the ghost of his lost grandfather.

...