A New Coast Doesn't Mean Hope

I wasn't sure if I wanted to read a post-war story. The author is known for writing about conflict and its effects on people. His books have always been post-war cities and its residents, say in the Korean War and the Vietnam war.

This is a short story, not a book. It's shorter. I might as well have a sense of what it's about. This is 'The New Coast' by Paul Yoon, published in The New Yorker on November 9, 2025.

Two brothers are fighting for survival in a shantytown in a small city that is rebuilding after the war. Their parents have died, but they have a sister that they have stopped searching for. They had been wandering for two years before settling down in this town. They know that stability of a 'normal' life and a home is out of reach for now, and they make do with what they can.

The narrator is the younger brother about thirteen years old. His eighteen-year-old elder brother could write and do some Math. He has been hired by the military to do the job of a census-taker of sorts, surveying the city's population. Money is tight, but they make do. It seems as though the older brother has shielded him from post-war realities. 

Their neighbor Mrs. S seemed kindly enough and acted like their guardian. She was also searching for her lost granddaughter, but she passed away before finding her. There are always orphans leftover in wars. 

The hope that their sister was alive and in an orphanage somewhere died, and they stayed on in the shantytown. The narrator turned fifteen and the brother is twenty years old. One day, the brother suddenly vanished. The narrator didn't know what happened, if he died in an accident, by suicide, or he simply ran off to look for the sister.

The ending is bleak, as post-war stories are. There's death, loss and resignation. I don't know how much hope there is, and if anyone could fight against not having a spark of hope.

The narrator took on his brother's old job, and carried on with living. He returned to the coast and found no trace of his brother. He went back to the village where they were born and didn't find him either. In all these re-tracing of steps in order to make some meaning of life, he returned to the shantytown and the city that has improved somewhat. 

Eventually, I returned to the city, though by then someone had taken over the shanty that my brother and I had made our home. I moved into another, where, to my surprise, there was one of Mrs. S’s bracelets hanging on a nail. I slipped it on, then thought better of it and put it back.

In the morning, I went to the office where my brother had worked and asked if I could have my brother’s job.

I still do that now. I walk the sections of the city that are slowly being rebuilt and collect names and information, and I go out to the new towns on the new train lines and do the same. I try to collect as much information as possible.

I look after my neighbors. I help them wash their clothes. I leave food out for the new dogs.