Jinwoo Chong- I Leave It Up To You (Podcast Interview)

Jinwoo Chong celebrates food, family, & finding love in his cozy novel, I Leave It Up To You. Learn how this project helped him fall in love with writing again.

What if you fell asleep in 2019 and woke up in 2021? That’s the reality for Jack Jr., who emerges from a two-year coma to find his life unrecognizable. His job is gone, his apartment is lost, and his partner has moved on. But in his return to his childhood home and his family’s struggling restaurant, he begins to rebuild—rekindling relationships, rediscovering love, and redefining what home truly means.

Jinwoo Chong shares the beautiful inspiration behind this poignant and tender slice-of-life novel, which seamlessly blends a swoon-worthy love story with a cozy family drama. We discuss how I Leave It Up to You evolved from a short story, the impact of the pandemic on its themes, and the role of food as both a comfort and a metaphor for resilience.

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I Leave It Up To You Book Summary

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.

Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night’s pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, too: that of romantic interest to the nurse who took care of him, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.

There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

Meet Jinwoo Chong

Jinwoo Chong is the author of Flux, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and VCU Cabell First Novel awards, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, Guernica, The Rumpus, and more. His latest novel, I Leave It Up to You, is now available from Penguin Random House.