My Korean Deli

Risking It All for a Convenience Store

By: Ben Ryder Howe

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

This sweet and funny tale of a preppy editor buying a Brooklyn deli with his Korean in-laws is about family, culture clash, and the quest for authentic experiences.

It starts with a gift. When Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store, Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees to go along. Things soon become a lot more complicated.

After the business struggles, Howe finds himself living in the basement of his in-laws’ Staten Island home, commuting to the Paris Review offices in George Plimpton’s Upper East Side townhouse by day, and heading to Brooklyn to slice cold cuts and peddle lottery tickets by night.

My Korean Deli follows the store’s tumultuous life span, and along the way paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership between characters with shoots across society, from the Brooklyn streets to Seoul to Puritan New England. Owning the deli becomes a transformative experience for everyone involved as they struggle to salvage the original gift—and the family—while sorting out issues of values, work, and identity.

©2010 Ben Ryder Howe (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“My Korean Deli is…about love, culture clashes, family, money, and literature. Plus, it happens to be very funny and poignant.” (A. J. Jacobs, New York Times best-selling author)

Good book, bad narrator

I enjoyed the book, and I appreciated the complexity of the characters. However, the author writes with a subtle and very funny irony, but the narrator played it as a broad farce. It made the book seem juvenile rather than literary. He really missed the point, and I had to keep compensating for his dumbing-down of a lovely and touching story.

Listened to it 4 Times...for the Narration

While the writing is excellent -- there's a reason the author was an editor at the prestigious Paris Review -- it's the narration that is breath-taking. How does Bronson Pinchot nail those voices so PERFECTLY. I never thought I'd re-listen to a book just for the narration but with this one I have. Each person I've recommended this book to has also had a 5-star experience.

Perfect!

What a great book! I was amazed at just how great this book was. What a great story teller! So interesting and funny in so many ways. Fun to hear about the many trials and tribulations that happen in trying to get going with the deli business. Neat to hear about the real-life family struggles that we all deal with.
Lots of interesting people/customers to hear about. You feel like you're right there in the deli. I loved the hearing about George Plimpton too. He was a neat man and the book shows that. Narrating was as good as you get!

Bronson Pinchot was excellent as the narrator

The book was okay. I think the writer liked using all of the big words he learned in school in one place. However, Bronson Pinchot's narration was excellent - he made each and every character unique with their own voice and speach. Very nice. It was an enjoyable listen.

Insider's View of a Deli

This was an entertaining story about the author's experience buying a deli. I liked how he interspersed his deli experience with his time as a journalist. For me, the best parts were when he talked about his employees and customers in the context of the NYC deli. This is a light and quick read, which was perfect to listen to during my commute time. The narration by Bronson Pinchot was quite good, and it was an enjoyable listening experience.

The author is a wuss.

I liked the story and the telling. By the end, however, the author was such a weakling who caved in to each and every character in the book, I simply disliked the guy. I'm surprised the man had the courage to write the book at all.

Coming from a First Gen

I'm a bit disappointed with this book because as a first generation American Korean, I was hoping to learn more of the Korean culture, but instead the book is a memoir of the author looking into a culture that he doesn't understand. I wanted to know more about the culture of running a business from an immigrant point of view and what challenges that they face at running their own business when English is not their native language.

Amusing and well-written

Would you try another book from Ben Ryder Howe and/or Bronson Pinchot?

Ben Ryder Howe gives us a truly funny look into the what happens when he, an upper-crust white boy grows up to marry into an immigrant Korean family, complete with a traditional, and very commanding (and guffaw-inducing) mother-in-law. Combined with Bronson's Pinchot's always spot-on narration, this is a great little read.

Would you ever listen to anything by Ben Ryder Howe again?

I love good writing. Ben Ryder Howe knows good writing from his time at THE PARIS REVIEW, the country's most prestigious literary magazine. But he not only knows good writing--he is a good writer himself. I never thought I would be interested in a book about running a New York deli. It's completely out of realm of interest. Nevertheless, I couldn't put it down. I loved laughing out loud as I listened along.

Would you be willing to try another one of Bronson Pinchot’s performances?

When I don't know what to listen to next, I will often look to see what my favorite narrators have been up to lately. They include Edward Hermann, Arthur Morey, and th great Bronson Pinchot.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from My Korean Deli?

Obviously, this book had a great editor because I wouldn't change a thing.

Any additional comments?

A perfect, quieter read for those who like well-drawn characters an some hearty laughs in their creative non-fiction.

Less than delicious tale

Ben Ryder Howe seems not to know what story he wants to tell, consequently a novel that had great potential turns out to be a self indulgent diary with chatter about a guy opening a store with his Korean wife and mother-in-law and his experience in a struggling magazine publishing business. The experiences with the Korean mother-in-law, was fun and insightful. Too bad, the author did not trust his ability to expand this story and instead meandered between story lines that provided neither dramatic or comic satisfaction. The narrator, is as excellent I look forward to hearing him narrate another novel). However, the story is anything but delicious.

Not Culturally Deep

Would you try another book from Ben Ryder Howe and/or Bronson Pinchot?

Maybe, if he developed a strong voice and a better topic.

What was most disappointing about Ben Ryder Howe’s story?

The writing in competent, but lacks a strong voice. It is almost like an assignment--write a novel on a topic you know something about. The cultural insights are nearly none, simply projecting from the main character on to his Korean family and friends. There is no real effort at understanding the Korean side of things, which maybe is the way the situation went down. If so, I really do not desire to here an American wine about things and admit how helpless he is. This lack of ability even extends to the business side of the story, with the main character unable to even main the cash register. I was hoping for cultural insight, and some small business experience, but neither are here.

How could the performance have been better?

Remove the shallow Korean accent attributed to the mother-in-law character, Kay. This made it sound very insulting. Why not put a spin on Howe's accent, which must have some distinct aspects to a Korean ear? I have not seen the printed book, but if the dialogue from Kay is written with a stereotyped accent, I would be most surprised.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Shame, as I had to turn off the player when any of my Asian friends or family walked into the room due to the insulting Korean accent attributed to the mother-in-law character.