Your House Will Pay

Most of the tension in Your House Will Pay revolves around whether or not characters will be able to look past their anger, to develop empathy for others and forgive them. At the heart of the novel is Jung-Ja Han, who committed the original sin of the story and never expresses remorse for shooting Ava Matthews. Whether or not Shawn would have forgiven Jung-Ja Han if she apologized is unknown, but the fact that she never formally apologized and ran from public view has led Shawn to live a life full of anger. As he tells Detective Neil Maxwell, “I was angry about it last Friday, and I’m angry about it today” (137). He has learned to control his anger, but the return of Jung-Ja Han to the news threatens this control. When Ray is indicted and Darryl quietly suffers guilt for his actions, Shawn is angry that his hard work rehabilitating his life did not lead to the safe, stable family he was promised (291). The question of whether Shawn will act on his anger or his obligations to his family dominates the end of the novel.

In the novel, fire symbolizes anger. In the opening scene, 13-year-old Shawn feels seduced by flames. He feels the energy of possibility in violence, in destroying Los Angeles to rebuild it anew. It is the feeling of doing something rather than nothing. It is for the same reason that Shawn eventually joins the Baring Cross Crips, which Darryl does years later. Fire is the promise of making one’s mark on the world, to affect change. This might not be positive change—after all, fire is unpredictable—but it is pursued on one’s own terms. During the Los Angeles uprising, Shawn wants to burn everything down. He wants revenge on the world for what happened to Ava, starting with Jung-Ja Han’s store. Because it is already burned, he turns his anger on Frank’s Liquor. However, this scene also demonstrates the power of empathy to disrupt anger. For a moment, Frank and Shawn recognize each other’s pain. This scene presents an alternate path—that of forgiveness, if not greater understanding. While the novel concludes before Shawn fully processes his anger, he is aware that this is the choice before him, and recognizes the goodness of Sheila when she finds it in herself to forgive Jung-Ja Han.

As for the Park sisters, Miriam and Grace experience anger differently. Two years ago, Miriam had to decide between challenging Yvonne or cutting her out of her life. She chooses the latter, and thus accepts some of her mother’s guilt—the result of taking no action. She tries to exonerate herself of guilt by becoming active in the Black Lives Matter movement and reaching out to the Holloway family. When Grace finds out what her mother did, she also reaches out to the Holloway family, who recognize that she is only concerned with processing her own guilt by association (191). This happens because neither daughter can fully express anger at their mother. They love her but cannot forgive her for her actions because forgiving her would mean justifying her lack of remorse; it would make them bad people. Grace discovers that Yvonne lives with her guilt by finding forgiveness in God (163) and the supportive church community (211). However, the only people who can truly forgive Yvonne for what she did are Ava’s family.