Racial Unrest Of Early '90s Los Angeles Resurfaces In 'Your House Will Pay'
Steph Cha's new novel takes place in the present day, but she connects her story of Korean American and black communities in LA to the riots and injustices of nearly three decades ago.
The past is prologue in Steph Cha's new novel, Your House Will Pay.
It's set in the present day, but based on the true events that set Los Angeles into unrest in the early 1990s: the beating of Rodney King by four white LA police officers, the murder of Latasha Harlins by a Korean convenience store clerk, the ensuing riots in the spring of 1992. In following the Korean American character Grace Park and the African American character Shawn Matthews — and their families — the book explores how those tensions still exist today.
In an interview, Cha — who is Korean American and grew up in the LA region in the
