Super Sad True Love Story

On July 2, Eunice receives a message from her mother. Mrs. Park is worried about the political situation in Manhattan and urges Eunice to return to Fort Lee. She asks Eunice to be “no political” (167) and encourages her to keep Sally out of politics, too. They Parks are afraid of the turmoil, which makes them question the decision to come to America. They’ve drawn closer to God. They will attend a revival at Madison Square Garden, and they want Eunice to come and bring Lenny.

Eunice checks in on Sally on GlobalTeens and urges her to avoid politics. Sally fights with Eunice over Lenny, angry that she did not know about Eunice’s boyfriend. In preparation for the upcoming family dinner, Eunice asks Sally to “act brain-smart” (168). Sally wonders why they “have to impress him” (168). Even as they argue over the fact that Lenny is neither Korean nor Christian, Eunice finds herself defending the way that “Lenny cares” and is “there for [her]” (169). Eunice begins to be nostalgic about their childhood, too, but Sally brushes her off to go study.

Checking in with Grillbitch, Eunice vents again about Lenny. Lenny, of course, is not happy that “he can’t tell [Eunice’s] mom that [they’re] going out” (171). Despite the argument, they’ve “had some Magic Pussy Penetration Time and it wasn’t bad” (171). Eunice also confesses that, with Lenny’s friends, she found herself “mentally cheating on Lenny” (171) with Noah. After talking to Grace, she explains that she “felt really vulnerable” and hates “all of them” (171).

Eunice also tells more in-depth about her return to the park. David, the good-looking Venezuela veteran, calls her “on her shit” (172), which she appreciates. The new National Guardsmen are “poor people hired from the south” (172), he explains, and the protesting guardsmen, who call them Aziz’s Army after the murdered bus driver, are ready to protest. Eunice is amazed at how organized they are, and she promises to help the cause by bringing supplies. David encourages her to continue her involvement, but she is afraid to run into Sally there: “It’s like being a saint is HER territory” (173). Eunice is compelled to be “the protector of [her] family” (173).

Although Eunice trusts Lenny “like a friend,” she reminds Grillbitch that she is “still [Eunice’s] one and only bestest truest friend” (173). Still, she admits that she is “so in love with him” (173). In Grillbitch’s next note, she largely avoids this message, focusing instead on the fact that “if things get dangerous [in New York], maybe [she] SHOULD move out to CA” (174).

David messages Eunice on GlobalTeens to ask for food for a Fourth of July celebration. He also encourages Eunice to see that “no matter what social arrangement we’re in, we’re always an army” (175). Eunice and her father need to fight in order to move forward, just like the country that they live in, out of “responsibility for [their] common future” (175).

Lenny writes, on July 7, of the “decline into fall” (176) that he feels around him at midsummer. Knowing that he’s “only given eighty summers or so per lifetime,” he feels pressure to live his “summertime best” (176). Because of this sense of mortality, Lenny says that he prefers the winter.

After the Chinese Central Bank President insults the United States upon his return home, the country seems to shut down. The Fourth of July is quiet. When Lenny returns to work after the holiday, “almost every block going up First Avenue [is] a barbed-wire-strewn checkpoint” (177). At work, Kelly Nardl is “a touchstone of honest emotion” (178) compared to the others, who play with their äppäräti.

Joshie holds a serious planning meeting. He lectures to the group about how “the dollar has been grossly, fantastically mismanaged” (178). Other countries, he points out, are “strong enough to decouple from us,” and as a result, the United States is “in a state of freefall” (179). However, the Post-Human Services Division is the “last, best hope for this nation’s future” (179).

After work, Lenny prepares for dinner with Eunice’s parents. He does not know how to dress for church. He chooses not to obsess over his outfit or to worry too much about the imperative to act like a roommate. Instead, he plans to impress the “immigrant parents” by convincing “them of [his] financial and social worth” (180). Still, when Eunice reveals that Sally knows they are “more than roomies,” Lenny celebrates the “small victory” (180).

Madison Square Garden is dingy and only half-filled with Korean people. Lenny is “nervous in a way [he] hadn’t been since childhood” (181) temple services. When he meets Eunice’s family, he notices that Eunice’s mother looks older than 50: “It was an act of the imagination to see Mrs. Park as the person she had been before she met Dr. Park” (182). Lenny also notes that Dr. Park is “a singularly handsome man” (182), and he feels intimidated by his strength and looks. Sally, meanwhile, looks “tender and loving” (183). Although Lenny knows what Eunice thinks of her, from his perspective, Sally seems “hurt and alone” (184).

Lenny watches the people, young and old, sing. He shudders at the music but also recognizes that the lyrics of the songs are “beautiful words” (185). He watches as some people begin “weeping, the kind of hemorrhaging, deep-seated sound that can only bring relief to the sufferer” (185). Eventually, Reverend Suk, the gathering’s leader, speaks.

With his accusatory words, the Reverend helps even the children realize “that they were sinners and this was a crusade; that they had done something immeasurably wrong” (186). In his mind, Lenny wonders who believes the message; he always wanted to “better understand the Korean-Christian connection” (187). He has always known how meaningful Christianity is to his friend Grace.

Inwardly, Lenny imagines what he would say to the crowd. He wants to tell them that they “have nothing to be ashamed of” (188). He wants to encourage the crowd not to “believe the Judeo-Christian lie” (188). But he also recognizes that his rage “might have been better summed up with the simple plea ‘Dr. Park, please do not hit your wife and daughters’” (188).

Over the meal following the service, Lenny works to impress Dr. Park, but the elder takes over constantly. He mocks the women at the table and treats Lenny as “co-conspirator” (190). Lenny guesses “that’s what tyrants can do, they make you covet their attention” (190). While Dr. Park speaks to Sally and Eunice in Korean, Lenny eats. He knows that it is “very unusual for Koreans to sit before food and not partake” (191), and he wishes that he could support Eunice during this punishment.

In Eunice’s eyes, he sees her pleading, “like the first time” (191) they met in Rome. As Dr. Park is “landing the plane of his soliloquy” (192), Lenny’s sympathy builds. After he finishes, the family begins eating, and Mrs. Park turns to question Lenny about his work. As Mrs. Park cheerily shares videos of nieces in California, Eunice flees the table crying. Lenny is sure that she cries because of “her father laughing, being kind, the family momentarily loving and intact—a cruel side trip into the impossible, an alternate history” (194). Lenny has forgiven his “parents for not knowing how to care for a child” (194), but he decides that he will never forgive Eunice’s parents.