Born in 1930 in Manchuria to a Christian Korean family escaping Japan's occupation of Korea, Suya lives as Japanese in World War II China, then the Communist Civil War and Korean War. She comes to America for college to earn a graduate degree in 1954. As the number two daughter of nine siblings, she intends to return home to help her mother care for the ailing father but confronts an arranged marriage she can't accept for a shameful wartime secret. At college, she meets a US-Korea War veteran and, during a hectic year-long courtship, falls in love. It's an unlikely match with Suya's family history and him being a son of an oft-married mother. Despite personal, social, and faith challenges, it is a devoted fifty-year marriage with children, travel, and a vibrant partnership.

In 2004, Suya is diagnosed with terminal Parkinson's and progressive memory loss. Through parallel episodes of her marriage and eight years of caregiving, Suya's Song relates her satin and steel personal saga of love and faith told with poignance, courage, humor, and grace as a testament to an amazing life well-lived.

Appended after the novel are Suya's written recollections of her childhood and family life in China and Korea that she completed just three months before a traumatic event that signaled the onset of her terminal ailment; it includes her heartfelt reminiscences of religious study with her mother and aunties and the genesis of her faith.