Inferno by Catherine Cho - Review
I received a free e-ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings for this book: domestic violence, severe mental illness, postpartum psychosis, involuntary stay in a mental hospital
Catherine Cho’s clear, clean writing draws a reader in right away. I was hooked from the first page and couldn’t put the book down, which made it a nice, fast read.
Cho alternates between past and present to tell the story of her life before and after being involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. She recounts a difficult childhood, an abusive relationship, and finally, finally meeting her loving husband James in a whirlwind romance.
Cho, like me, is Korean-American and grew up with certain superstitions and folktales. After the birth of her son, Cato, as she and her husband travel across America to introduce their loved ones to their newborn, breaking nearly every Korean superstition about the birth of a child. At her in-laws, who are also Korean, Cho becomes paranoid and caught between her autonomy and fulfilling her in-laws’ expectations. She experiences postpartum psychosis and is committed by her husband to a mental hospital.
At the hospital, Cho is left to reflect on what’s real and what isn’t, the passage of time, and how the mentally ill are cast aside and ignored, even in a mental hospital. She quickly falls into a routine and tries to piece together how to prove she’s well enough to go home.
Cho writes with attention to detail, leaving readers feeling like they’re walking in lockstep with her, experiencing her joys, her heartbreaks, and her hallucinations. This memoir is heartfelt and will leave readers thinking about what it means to merge two families and what it is that holds a family together. At the end of the book, Cho's story is a love story about the love within a family.
I would recommend this book to others, especially other Asian-Americans who have experiences with mental illness or those who want to read about complex inter- and intra-familial relationships.