Unveiling Secrets Across Borders: A North Korean Daughter’s Heartbreaking Journey in "The Boat Not Taken"
Reviewed by Dorothy Rice
The Boat Not Taken: A North Korean Daughter and Her Mother’s Story (Betty; May 2025) by Joanna Choi Kalbus is one of the first titles from WTAW Press’ (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) new imprint, Betty, established by director and editor-in-chief Peg Alford Purcell specifically for books by women, with the goal of showcasing the diversity of women’s voices.
Choi Kalbus’ memoir is a particularly apt choice for the fledgling imprint; in her March 2024 Hippocampus Magazine interview, Purcell explained, “I named Betty after my mother, who was a prolific reader.” I say apt, and beautifully so, because The Boat Not Taken is the story of a mother and daughter, bound in a tight embrace by their traumatic, often painful, shared past—the loss of home, family, and community, escaping North Korea following the Communist takeover, then leaving South Korea for the United States when the narrator was a young girl.
