What if you could flip a coin and change your life?

In her thoughtful, entertaining new collection, Signs and Wonders, Alix Ohlin lures readers into what seem like lulls, and then, there it is: a car crash. A coma. A missing child. A man licking a woman’s leg.

Sung J. Woo was born in Korea and immigrated to the United States with his mother and two sisters when he was ten years old. Several years earlier, his father had moved to this country in order to establish a small business–a small, Asian-themed store in a mall in New Jersey–which would one day serve as the basis for the setting of Sung Woo’s debut novel, Everything Asian. Captured with humor and generosity, the book chronicles one year in the lives of the Kim family as they adjust to a new life in the United States and interact with fellow shopkeepers at Peddlers Town.

Woo spoke with Jeremiah Chamberlin on May 15th during the Ann Arbor Book Festival.