Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast Uses Art as Grief Therapy

Credit: Flickr, David Lee

In 2014, Michelle Zauner’s mother was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. She died three months later. Zauner’s music career had already started by then, but her mother’s sudden death caused the Korean-American artist to return to her family home in Oregon. While there, Zauner launched her indie rock band, Japanese Breakfast. The band’s first two studio albums were described as “dark and heavy handed,” and they were very much influenced by Zauner’s grief. However, over time and through writing the vocalist has found a way back to joy.

Zauner began writing essays such as “Real Life: Love, Loss, and Kimchi,” which won Glamour magazine’s 11th essay contest. This sincere, beautiful essay documents Zauner’s experience with Korean food as a half-Korean child growing up in the Pacific Northwest. After her mother first died, food is what brought her mother close again.

The singer also wrote “Crying in H-Mart,” which Zauner began as an essay in the New Yorker and eventually fleshed out as a full-length memoir. The writer grapples with the loss of her mother and writes, “Sobbing near the dry goods, I ask myself, ‘Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?'”

Crying in H-Mart, published by Knopf in April 2021

Just before the book form of her longing for her mother was published, Harpar’s Bazaar released the article “#Forgiveness” by Zauner. The longer title reads, “When My Mother Died, My Father Quickly Started a New Life. I Chose to Forgive Him.” In the early years after Zauner’s mother’s death, the singer attempted to understand her father and his own grieving process. She watched him change physically, losing 40 pounds and getting a tattoo. His lifestyle changed to a much younger vibe, and Zauner remembered her own mother waiting for her outside of Hot Topic as a teen. She watched her father with the same compassion, until he got engaged to a 24-year old, who was 7 years younger than Zauner at the time. The Japanese Breakfast vocalist explains how she crafted a fake Instagram persona in order to view her father’s fiancé’s photos and stories. Though Zauner continues to feel estranged from her dad, her internet alter ego is able to choose #forgiveness.

In June 2021, Zauner released Japanese Breakfast’s third studio album, “Jubilee.” Zauner has explained that this album is about joy. While the first two albums were colored by Zauner’s grief and loss, “Jubilee” is about moving forward. Zauner told CNN, “I wanted to write an album about giving myself permission to feel joy, finally allowing joy into my life, the joys of getting to do what I do for a living which is just a complete lottery ticket.”

Michelle and her mother, family photo
Credit: CBS News

Zauner writes of the tough relationship she and her mother had at times, especially during her teen and young adult years. Differing beliefs and priorities kept them at odds, and when her mother died, Zauner felt cheated of the closeness they could have cultivated during her older adult years. However, through cooking, writing, and music, Zauner has found her way to forgiveness, healing, and joy. As a public figure, Michelle Zauner has allowed the world to watch her walk through the grieving process. Her essays, memoir, and music offers readers and listeners art to help them process in their own ways.