Immigration, Incest and Post-Nationality in Krys Lee’s “The Believer”

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the idea of a drifting house, a house with no fixed coordinates, a concept that is central to an understanding of immigration. It can also describe what Anaïs Nin referred to as a house of incest, which means that under such a roof, all traditional familial boundaries are mobilised, either being crossed or absent to begin with. This is the situation for Jenny and her father in Krys Lee’s short story, “The Believer,” from her debut book Drifting House (2012). After her mother murders a delivery boy and is incarcerated in a high-security psychiatric facility, Jenny and her father become dislocated from their life as immigrants to the United States. Eventually, daughter and father take a road trip to visit Jenny’s mother and then drive on to Las Vegas, where their life as immigrants began and where they will now cross the ultimate boundary. Very few women writers have addressed the emotive theme of incest from the position of a daughter’s willingness to participate or even initiate the sexual encounter. Krys Lee twins immigration with incest to draw significant parallels between the two situations. In doing so, she demonstrates how the European and Korean past remains relevant to post-national literature.