Erica’s Pick of the Week: Yeonnam-Dong’s Smiley Laundromat

Laugh all you want, but I like a nice laundromat, especially at night. They’re infinitely more pleasant than that creepy laundry room in the basement of your college dorm. They’re cozy, even when they’re brightly lit. They smell nice. The rumble of the machines is soothing. In short, laundromats are charming.

Yeonnam Dong’s Smiley Laundromat by Kim Jiyun, a recent title in the breakout “healing fiction” genre, is as warm and satisfying as its setting. Five strangers in the rapidly gentrifying Korean neighborhood of Yeonnam-Dong find themselves drawn to the local laundromat, with its cheerful handpainted sign, signature-scented dryer sheets, self-service coffee machine and…a notebook. A battered green notebook, where people can doodle, leave reviews, or ask for advice. More often than not, someone else answers.

Nobody knows where the notebook came from. But when Old Jang, a widower, spots a plea for help within its pages – Why is life so hard? – he feels compelled to respond, offering advice and encouragement. His actions set off a chain of events and messages that bring together these disparate customers – a stay-at-home mother, a troubled college student, a struggling screenwriter, and others. Their journeys overlap and intertwine, transforming their lives.

Ultimately, this is a story about people coming together to create the community they need. Life throws plenty of obstacles into their path: marital spats, financial pressure, family dysfunction, terrible loss. But when they put aside their pride and fear to reach out to others, they discover a path forward, even if it doesn’t look like what they’d imagined. 

What sets this story apart from other healing fiction is the overarching mystery of the green notebook. Where did it come from? Who is the portrait sketched inside? And when outside forces threaten, will their newfound community be enough to protect one of their own? The result is that the climax of the book is genuinely tense, and the ending, while heartwarming, is also hard-won.

There’s a quiet pleasure in immersing yourself in the world of the Smiley Laundromat – in experiencing the daily lives of regular people, each doing the best they can, and finding connection and clarity along the way. Hopeful and heartwarming, but never cloying, it’s a welcome antidote to the noise and stress of the outside world. Fans of Maeve Binchy, Alexander McCall Smith, or Sara Nisha Adams will find much to love…at the laundromat, of all places.