The Loom Tree

Praise for Angela Mi Young Hur

“Magical, surreal, and wonderfully eccentric. It wouldn’t be fair to compare The Loom Tree to The Secret History or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but if both those books had a fever dream, it might approximate this book. The Loom Tree manifests its own subgenre—fairytale dark academia, perhaps?—with audacious swagger, and reckons with the past by reckoning with the scope of story. I highly recommend for lovers of fairytales and mythology, particularly for anyone who longed to see themselves in those stories, or who searched for a story where they could belong.” —Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

“Rich and textured as a tapestry, The Loom Tree weaves the danger and intrigue of dark academia with the enchantment and resonance of story: the secret histories of our families, the folk tales that untangle ancestral memories and tap into our intertwined roots, and the tales we write and rewrite for ourselves just as we are coming into our own power. Mesmerizing.” —Laura Ruby, Two-Time National Book Award Finalist and Author of Bone Gap

“The Loom Tree is an alchemical gyre of myth and family history, friendship and song, all expertly woven into a delightful tale of magical academia. It is endlessly surprising and immensely moving—a story of stories reclaimed, reinvented, and set free.” —Jedediah Berry, Crawford Award-winning author of The Naming Song

“From the moment I first stepped into the world of The Loom Tree, I was swept up in its spell. Angela Mi Young Hur has woven a fever dream of a modern fairy tale within the pages of a book that is at once an innovative campus novel, a reclamation of lost heritage, and a deep-dive into the world’s myths, all with a resonant and deeply human Korean-American experience beating at its fantastical heart.” —Lynn D. Jung, author of Mothsblood

“Ghost story, family saga, parable, feminist reimagined myth: Angela Mi Young Hur’s hugely ambitious Folklorn is a spellbinding shape-shifter of a novel that tackles questions of race, culture, and history head-on, exploring the blurry boundaries between past and present, fact and fantasy, and personal and cultural—or cosmic.” —Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere on Folklorn

“Dark, difficult, and riveting—Folklorn gave me endless trouble, and I appreciate it.” —R. F. Kuang, New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Katabasis, on Folklorn

“An elegant punch to the face . . . beautiful and hard and hungry, full of sharp, painful observations, slicing clichés open like prickly pears and devouring their hearts.” —The New York Times Book Review on Folklorn

“Vivid and delectable. Angela Hur is equally at home working in the fertile territories of myth and the fantastic as in the nuanced portrayal of a contemporary, complex family. I loved this.” —Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The Book of Love, on Folklorn

“A gorgeous journey into the intersection of science and myth and how our past traumas shape us—but how they need not define us.” —NPR, Best Books of the Year on Folklorn

“A work of capacious, original imagination: part supernatural mystery, part immigrant family story. Hur’s mixing and melding of genres is an inventive, elegant means of illuminating the dualities of diasporic experience, as well as a testament to the essential role of stories in understanding our identities.” —Peter Ho Davies, author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself, on Folklorn

“Folklorn is a spectacular book. Hur writes with virtuosity and power, weaving together the ribbons of the mythic with the complex tapestry of family and history to create a gorgeous, moving whole.” —Kat Howard, Alex Award-winning author of An Unkindness of Magicians, on Folklorn

“In Folklorn, Angela Mi Young Hur weaves the fantastic into the realism of a compelling family saga, creating a heartfelt novel as original as it is irresistible. Pick this up if you’re ready to not put it down.” —Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day

“A beautiful, liminal exploration of the world, physics, and complex families born and found, told with an added rush of the fantastic.” —Fran Wilde, Nebula Award-winning author of Updraft and Riverland, on Folklorn

“With enviable ambition and swagger, Folklorn tosses us from one shimmering setting to another: Antarctic research station, Korean spa, Scandinavian island, hipster neighborhood in Stockholm, auto body shop in Southern California. Exploring our genetic and traumatic inheritances, Angela Hur weaves gorgeous Korean fables through a woman’s messy, international search for redemption and connection. This novel is brash, defiant and ultimately full of yearning.” —Chia-Chia Lin, author of The Unpassing, on Folklorn

“Folklorn is extremely ambitious in scope, and the writing never fails to deliver. . . . Angela Mi Young Hur engagingly blends Korean folktales with literary traditions for a fresh take on both the universal story of identity and assimilation, and the national tale of han.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“A complex meditation on intergenerational trauma. . . . The honest look at prickly Elsa’s internalized racism is ambitious but often brutal in its unflinching execution. . . . This thought-provoking work will appeal to SFF fans who like their talk of particle physics side by side with fox spirits and fairy tales.” —Publishers Weekly, on Folklorn

“[Elsa’s] story is gripping and rings as true as the bell she hears in her mind. A quiet but compelling rumination on family, race, and trauma, built on the spaces in Korean folktales.” —Kirkus Reviews, on Folklorn

“Haunting and spiritual and touching, and so unique. This is absolutely one to be cherished.” —Tor.com, “30 Most Anticipated Books of 2021”, on Folklorn