Janie Kim is the author of We Carry the Sea In Our Hands, out with Alcove Press on July 9, 2024. Applauded as “beautifully composed [and] original” by New York Times-bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates, the debut novel employs poetic prose and an imaginative voice to explore family, trauma, and belonging through one woman’s journey to reconnect with her roots.
Janie is the daughter of South Korean immigrants. She grew up in San Diego, California, and studied molecular biology at Princeton University. She is currently a biology PhD student at Stanford University and is studying RNA in the symbiosis between V. fischeri, a bioluminescent bacterium, and the bobtail squid, a very charismatic little creature. She likes ocean critters that are fun-sized, or, better yet, microscopic (funner-sized). As an undergraduate, she worked with bacteria that live inside algae and make toxins to deter hungry sea slugs. During her Fulbright research grant to Denmark, she spent time with some tag-team marine bacteria and microalgae.
She writes about these and other topics in microbiology for Small Things Considered.
about WE CARRY THE SEA IN OUR HANDS
Told with poetic prose and an imaginative voice, this “beautifully composed [and] original” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times bestselling author) debut novel explores family, trauma, and belonging through one woman’s journey to reconnect with her roots.
Abby Rodier was a “drop-box baby,” a Korean orphan whose mother could not take care of her and left her as an infant. Abby’s tumultuous experience in the American foster care system has led her to live a solitary and guarded life, closed off to almost everyone except her best friend Iseul, whose parents took Abby into their home as a child.
Abby’s work studying the origins of life in sea slugs and bacteria leads her to wonder about her birth parents and question her place in this world. It’s not long before Abby stumbles upon a biological discovery that will change the course of her life. Meanwhile, Iseul’s devotion to their ill brother leads to an entanglement between her work as an investigative journalist and the murky world of black market medicine.
After a tragic event, Abby’s life is thrown into a tailspin. With the rug pulled from under her feet, she spirals into a disorientation of grief, apparitions, and compulsions. With the help of those around her, Abby must embark on a journey to understand her true roots and make peace with her present.