The Night Parade

August 1, 2023
Lin uses mythology from her Taiwanese and Japanese heritage to make sense of mental illness, cancer, and pregnancy loss. When the author was 17, she was hospitalized for a psychiatric condition doctors would diagnose as bipolar disorder. She recalls her week in the psychiatric unit, which she refers to as "Upstairs," as a relief, remembering, "I did not feel the need to prove I was sick, like I did with people outside who thought my illness was an attention grab or an evasion of responsibility." Among the other patients, Lin felt a sense of community, finally finding young women who could relate to her experience--something she missed later in life when, pregnant, she realized she didn't know any other "bipolar parents." Her hospitalization marked another important milestone: the day when her father, finally recognizing the depth of her teenage distress, asked her, "Do you need help?"--and finally the author was able to answer, "yes." The memory became particularly poignant when, after a miscarriage, Lin gave birth to a daughter weeks before her father died from cancer. To make sense of these interwoven stories, Lin relies on Asian mythology, using the legend of the "woman of bone" who preys on her ex-lovers to describe her feelings around her miscarriage or using the baku, "swallower of nightmares," to explain how she felt about her father's death. Throughout this inventive narrative, Lin takes calculated literary risks, ranging from the use of epistolary forms to experiments with point of view. These risks pay off mightily, coming together in a vulnerable, insightful, and refreshingly original meditation on survival, illness, and grief. A stunning memoir about the stories that make us who we are.

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Starred review from October 2, 2023
In this gorgeous and unique debut memoir, Lin draws on the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo (the “Night Parade of One Hundred Demons,” in which demons and spirits march through the streets at night) to document her struggles with bipolar disorder and her father’s fatal illness. Organizing her tale into a traditional Japanese four-act structure, Lin recounts an adolescence marked by debilitating rage and depression, which led to feelings of shame at appearing “monstrous” to herself and others. After a voluntary admission to the psych ward at 17, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Eventually, Lin learned to regulate the disorder, married, and had a child, though her happiness was undercut by the agony of watching her father’s struggle against the cancer that eventually killed him. Throughout, Lin draws on characters from the Hyakki Yagyo (like the hideous, flesh-eating Oni Baba, or the vengeful ghost whale known as Bakekujira) to contextualize and come to terms with her feelings, sometimes using them to personify her “ugly” emotions, other times using them to interrogate cultural narratives about monstrousness. Interspersed throughout are full-color illustrations of each creature by her sister, Cori. “The story is a different story,” Lin writes of the mythic yardstick she uses to process her own tragedies; “The story is the same story.” The result is a memorable and moving exorcism of the monsters within.

October 1, 2023
"In the presence of a story... time collapses. This is why I am always telling it." So begins Lin's memoir-cum-bestiary, a narrative of discovering her bipolar disorder, the struggle to start a family, and her beloved father's death and its aftermath. Along the way, she tells stories of the yōkai, the liminal, ambiguous, supernatural creatures of Japanese folk and fairy tale, in the legends of which Lin finds parallels to her family's experience of colonization, trauma, immigration, and community. Illustrated in dreamy gouache and watercolor by Cori Nakamura Lin, the author's sister, The Night Parade explores the many ways we--humans as individuals, humans in community--use stories to make sense of our lives. When calamity strikes, as in every life it must, the tales of the yōkai tell us why and how we can keep it from happening again. "To prevent disaster," Lin writes, "worship the thing that eats you." Heartfelt and thoughtful, this painfully lovely memoir will appeal to readers of Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House and Sabrina Imbler's How Far the Light Reaches.

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Starred review from October 1, 2023

In this highly innovative memoir, Lin shares her experiences as a person with bipolar disorder as she comes of age, marries, experiences a miscarriage, loses her father to cancer, and becomes a mother. Originally misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder, Lin suffered for years, enduring a suicide attempt and multiple hospitalizations before receiving a correct diagnosis. Using Japanese, Chinese, and Taiwanese folklore to enrich her story, the author (who is a Japanese Taiwanese Okinawan American) delves into her own powerful feelings of rage, despair, loss, and hurt, ultimately emerging from each experience stronger and with more insight into not only herself but also her complex family history. With compelling prose, this title weaves folktales about frightening and monstrous figures into the narratives of Lin's own developing bipolar disorder, her lineage, and her father's illness. Her gorgeous writing draws readers into her gripping story, which is organized into a four-part narrative structure drawn from Japanese literary tradition. The book is richly illustrated by the author's sister, Cori Nakamura Lin. VERDICT An engrossing memoir by an extraordinary debut author.--Rebecca Mugridge

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