By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
What does a family mean to you? The family is an important source for your identity but, for some, it is a yoke to shake off.
Veteran author Seo Ha-jin, 48, has recently released a book titled ``A Good Family,'' which seeks to explore the meaning of family today.
The family is not a new theme for Seo who has written six novels over the last ten years since her debut as an author.
She mostly portrayed the middle class crises through the disruption of families and clashes of desires in her major works such as ``Scent of Lavender'' and ``Yacht.'' In the works, she divulged the hypocrisy and fatigue of the family system and marriage through middle-aged men and women's deviations.
However, in this book, she turns a more sympathetic eye on the value of family, different from her cynical and sarcastic views in previous works.
But don't let the title mislead anyone. The families she talks about in the book are outwardly disguised as ``good faces,'' to keep the family ties and solidarity, struggling inwardly with conflicts.
The book consists of eight short stories with different episodes in which the author tries to understand the disharmony and conflicts, and cure them with the family's patience and sacrifice.
The author expresses the efforts of family members who have to suppress their desires to maintain their household.