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The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir
"Jami Nakamura Lin has reinvented the genre of memoir, weaving an intricate braid of fable, memory, art, cultural legacy, and legend into a gorgeous tapestry of the stories that made her. Serpentine, polyphonic, and stunningly textured, The Night Parade positively pulses with life." -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, award-winning author of The Fact of a Body
In the groundbreaking tradition of In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias, a gorgeously illustrated speculative memoir that draws upon the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo--the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons--to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness, grief, and remembrance.
Are these the only two stories? The one where you defeat your monster, and the other where you succumb to it?
Jami Nakamura Lin spent much of her life feeling monstrous for reasons outside of her control. As a young woman with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, much of her adolescence was marked by periods of extreme rage and an array of psychiatric treatments, and her relationships suffered as a result, especially as her father's cancer grasped hold of their family.
As she grew older and learned to better manage her episodes, Lin grew frustrated with the familiar pattern she found in mental illness and grief narratives, and their focus on recovery. She sought comfort in the stories she'd loved as a child--tales of ghostly creatures known to terrify in the night. Through the lens of the yokai and other figures from Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legend, she set out to interrogate the very notion of recovery and the myriad ways fear of difference shapes who we are as a people.
Featuring stunning illustrations by her sister, Cori Nakamura Lin, and divided into the four acts of a traditional Japanese narrative structure, The Night Parade is a genre-bending and deeply emotional memoir that mirrors the sensation of being caught between realms. Braiding her experience of mental illness, the death of her father, the grieving process, and other haunted topics with storytelling tradition, Jami Nakamura Lin shines a light into dark corners, driven by a How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us?
In the groundbreaking tradition of In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias, a gorgeously illustrated speculative memoir that draws upon the Japanese myth of the Hyakki Yagyo--the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons--to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness, grief, and remembrance.
Are these the only two stories? The one where you defeat your monster, and the other where you succumb to it?
Jami Nakamura Lin spent much of her life feeling monstrous for reasons outside of her control. As a young woman with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, much of her adolescence was marked by periods of extreme rage and an array of psychiatric treatments, and her relationships suffered as a result, especially as her father's cancer grasped hold of their family.
As she grew older and learned to better manage her episodes, Lin grew frustrated with the familiar pattern she found in mental illness and grief narratives, and their focus on recovery. She sought comfort in the stories she'd loved as a child--tales of ghostly creatures known to terrify in the night. Through the lens of the yokai and other figures from Japanese, Taiwanese, and Okinawan legend, she set out to interrogate the very notion of recovery and the myriad ways fear of difference shapes who we are as a people.
Featuring stunning illustrations by her sister, Cori Nakamura Lin, and divided into the four acts of a traditional Japanese narrative structure, The Night Parade is a genre-bending and deeply emotional memoir that mirrors the sensation of being caught between realms. Braiding her experience of mental illness, the death of her father, the grieving process, and other haunted topics with storytelling tradition, Jami Nakamura Lin shines a light into dark corners, driven by a How do we learn to live with the things that haunt us?
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 24, 2023
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July 2, 2023
Every year, I lead writing workshops centered on the memoir. In them, we talk about what a memoir is and isn’t, how to identify your memoir’s desire line, and which events from your life’s timeline influence that desire line. We note how, even though every memoir is wildly different, memoir as a genre is fairly formulaic. Though “good” writing isn’t something that can be taught, my students agree, how to write a memoir that follows the formula is.
But every once in a while, a book like Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade (2023) comes along that upends the whole genre; and then, talking about what a memoir isn’t doesn’t hold much water. These books redefine what memoir is and can be. They say, Actually, there’s room here for experimentation, for play, for stories within stories … and in the case of The Night Parade, yes, even for short fiction at the heart of nonfiction! At which point, it’s back to the drawing board for me, as I redesign my lessons to account for memoirs at the fringes, memoirs that don’t follow all the “rules.”
There’s still a desire line in The Night Parade: Lin wants to make peace with her father’s early death from cancer. And we get the familiar beats of a cancer narrative: life before cancer, the diagnosis, treatment (a.k.a, “the battle”), resolution (remission or, here, death), life after. But it’s like Lin threw these beats into a mixing bowl, gave them a stir, and watched to see what floated first to the top. Events are told out of order. They are interspersed with memories of Lin’s own “battles” against bipolar disorder, miscarriage, and mouth granulomas. We get snippets of journal entries—her own, and her father’s—and letters written to a child not yet old enough to read them. At times, her grandparents on both sides appear to give the reader a history lesson on Okinawa, Japanese Imperial rule, and World War II. All while Lin’s father lies on a hospital bed in the background.
Most disrupting—and I would argue, effecting—is the way Lin constantly frames and reframes her own mythology through that of Japanese yokai mythology. Even Lin struggles to describe exactly what yokai are, but to say they’re spirit-creatures would be a close approximation. Some resemble ogres or mermaids. One’s a fox with multiple tails. There’s a whale that can curse whole villages for generations. The yokai are what lend The Night Parade its title, since the fabled Night Parade occurs when the spirit-creatures gather together and “cavort” through the streets of Kyoto. They also give the book its structure. Each new chapter opens with an illustration (by the author’s sister, Cori) and overview of a different yokai, the latter of which teeters between academic and whimsical. Lin then borrows that particular spirit-creature’s personality and traits to comment on herself, her family members, and the events unfolding in their lives until her tale, too, becomes almost mythic—because its on the scale of, and rooted in, the epic.
The next time you want to read something different, arresting, compelling, and strangely beautiful, pick up Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade. It’s a “speculative” memoir that refuses to be a memoir in the traditional sense, and it’s one I’ll be including in future memoir-writing workshops.
But every once in a while, a book like Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade (2023) comes along that upends the whole genre; and then, talking about what a memoir isn’t doesn’t hold much water. These books redefine what memoir is and can be. They say, Actually, there’s room here for experimentation, for play, for stories within stories … and in the case of The Night Parade, yes, even for short fiction at the heart of nonfiction! At which point, it’s back to the drawing board for me, as I redesign my lessons to account for memoirs at the fringes, memoirs that don’t follow all the “rules.”
There’s still a desire line in The Night Parade: Lin wants to make peace with her father’s early death from cancer. And we get the familiar beats of a cancer narrative: life before cancer, the diagnosis, treatment (a.k.a, “the battle”), resolution (remission or, here, death), life after. But it’s like Lin threw these beats into a mixing bowl, gave them a stir, and watched to see what floated first to the top. Events are told out of order. They are interspersed with memories of Lin’s own “battles” against bipolar disorder, miscarriage, and mouth granulomas. We get snippets of journal entries—her own, and her father’s—and letters written to a child not yet old enough to read them. At times, her grandparents on both sides appear to give the reader a history lesson on Okinawa, Japanese Imperial rule, and World War II. All while Lin’s father lies on a hospital bed in the background.
Most disrupting—and I would argue, effecting—is the way Lin constantly frames and reframes her own mythology through that of Japanese yokai mythology. Even Lin struggles to describe exactly what yokai are, but to say they’re spirit-creatures would be a close approximation. Some resemble ogres or mermaids. One’s a fox with multiple tails. There’s a whale that can curse whole villages for generations. The yokai are what lend The Night Parade its title, since the fabled Night Parade occurs when the spirit-creatures gather together and “cavort” through the streets of Kyoto. They also give the book its structure. Each new chapter opens with an illustration (by the author’s sister, Cori) and overview of a different yokai, the latter of which teeters between academic and whimsical. Lin then borrows that particular spirit-creature’s personality and traits to comment on herself, her family members, and the events unfolding in their lives until her tale, too, becomes almost mythic—because its on the scale of, and rooted in, the epic.
The next time you want to read something different, arresting, compelling, and strangely beautiful, pick up Jami Nakamura Lin’s The Night Parade. It’s a “speculative” memoir that refuses to be a memoir in the traditional sense, and it’s one I’ll be including in future memoir-writing workshops.
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August 6, 2024how do i get an invite
December 15, 2023
an interesting story
January 12, 2024
Lin was not diagnosed with bipolar disorder until she was seventeen. Until that age she was always angry, prone to violent outbursts of rage and frustration. Frustration because even at that young age Lin knew something was wrong and yet the people in her life, even her father who was a doctor, did not believe her behaviour stemmed from the disorder.
This is a special book. A memoir but so much more. A memoir that does not conform to the normal form of the genre. In fact, it takes the structure of a traditional Japanese narrative, divided into four parts, at times reading like fiction and taking different forms such as letters and journal entries.
As a child Lin would use stories from Asian folklore to help her through a terrible period of her life. A period of uncertainty and anger. Although most of these tales are terrifying, especially for the young, they comforted her. The yokai would bring calm and reason to a wild and disordered life. They could explain the unexplainable and give Lin hope.
With this “speculative” memoir, Lin weaves these ghosts and spirits through the anecdotes and memories of her life. Lin uses the yokai not to give meaning, but to shine a new, different light on subjects such as mental disorders, and unbearable grief.
Traditional readers may find this form jarring, interrupting the flow of the memoir, but I believe it is a touch of genius, and an amazing read.
If you are a collector of books, and appreciate the beauty of the physical book, you will not be disappointed. Lin’s sister Cori illustrates the memoir, and it must be said that this is a stunning book to have on the shelf.
This is a special book. A memoir but so much more. A memoir that does not conform to the normal form of the genre. In fact, it takes the structure of a traditional Japanese narrative, divided into four parts, at times reading like fiction and taking different forms such as letters and journal entries.
As a child Lin would use stories from Asian folklore to help her through a terrible period of her life. A period of uncertainty and anger. Although most of these tales are terrifying, especially for the young, they comforted her. The yokai would bring calm and reason to a wild and disordered life. They could explain the unexplainable and give Lin hope.
With this “speculative” memoir, Lin weaves these ghosts and spirits through the anecdotes and memories of her life. Lin uses the yokai not to give meaning, but to shine a new, different light on subjects such as mental disorders, and unbearable grief.
Traditional readers may find this form jarring, interrupting the flow of the memoir, but I believe it is a touch of genius, and an amazing read.
If you are a collector of books, and appreciate the beauty of the physical book, you will not be disappointed. Lin’s sister Cori illustrates the memoir, and it must be said that this is a stunning book to have on the shelf.
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January 3, 2024Unfortunately this book is really not for me. I am glad other people get things out of it and I wish the writer well, but I had a few ethical and conceptual issues that made this book ultimately impossible to finish.
Compared to In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays, both memoirs I greatly enjoyed, this book isn't really like either of them beyond being formally and conceptually experimental. This book is structured like the kaidan of Japanese summer ghost storytelling and each chapter is named after a kind of Japanese yokai.
The book falls into a familiar formula, Lin gives us a basic Wiki/Poke-dex definition of said yokai paraphrases and quotes scholars who have written about said creature or the folklorists who have written about them, occasionally quotes her research team who speaks Japanese or Mandarin and therefore presumably summarized or interpreted scholarship for her, and then draws a usually somewhat oblique and brief comparison as to why this yokai represents the serious personal issue in her life.
However as a result, this book ends up feeling like half of one thing and two thirds of another. It is both a vague and unpeer reviewed scholarly...something...and then also a memoir about a very particular Okinawan Taiwanese American evangelical Christian family in Chicago.
One of my objections comes from Lin and my own shared ethnic group. I'm Japanese American and we arrived around the same time/had a similar trajectory to Okinawan Americans. Lin is clearly drawing on (or from a more cynical perspective capitalizing on) the idea that yokai are a traditional Japanese folklore, but in my own evangelical Christian Japanese American family and even my more secular sides of the family, no one was really talking about hone onna, or oni baba, or kappas or whatever. While it's heavily implied that yokai are an indigenous way of knowing about mental health, Lin's own engagement with these concepts comes largely from outside research or scholars rather than some sort of family tradition. For example, it would be like interpreting your life by the various Sailor Scouts of the Sailor Moon manga, which is like fine, but that's because *you* learned about and saw something in them that resonated with you, not that because Sailor Moon is a Japanese manga that this is a resonant and inherited part of your DNA or culture. There's nothing wrong with that but I am troubled by the implication that these originary myths cast such long shadows over a diaspora like ours given how changed our culture has become. Most Japanese and Okinawan Americans' ancestors came over in the 1850s-1870s, our relationship to these cultures has diverged pretty greatly from what contemporary Japanese and Okinawans currently practice.
Also, from a scholarly perspective, I have deep deep misgivings about celebrating Yanagita Kunio and folkloric work that he saw as primarily a nation building project FOR JAPAN and saying "this is my Okinawan culture." Lin clearly states that she is aware of the colonial difference between Okinawans and Japanese but this desire conflate colonized culture with a more dominant and marketable colonizer culture troubles me. It's similar on the Taiwanese side. Lin clearly knows at least something about the fraught history of Taiwan's relationship to China and Chineseness. She says so. Yet she'll talk about her Taiwanese heritage and how the Taiwanese relationship to Chineseness is complicated and then say "The Rat is the first year of the Chinese zodiac cycle." That complicated and heterogenous relationship totally flattened and gone by eliding it with mythical Chineseness. She goes on to quote Emperor Wen of Zhou about rats, and sorry, but how does a somewhat mythical Zhou king from 2000 BCE relate to an island that he never ruled and probably didn't even know existed?This desire to completely flatten the subject positions of Okinawans and Taiwanese is honestly deeply disturbing to me and seems disappointing at best and extremely insensitive at worst.
Also Lin refers to this literary figure as Emperor Wen, but I believe he is more commonly called King Wen as the title of emperor 皇 didn't come to be used until the Qin dynasty long after the Zhou may have existed. The Stephen Owen translation of the rat poem she references would certainly do that. See also my point that this is gesturing at scholarship but not peer reviewed. I am also aware that scholarship and ideas can be useful to fictional and nonfictional books and not every book needs 2k citations because most people don't want to read that. Academic books have the well deserved reputation of being very boring. But I think you need to do basic legwork to make sure that your facts are basically correct. And when a memoir relies so much on third party scholarship to support itself, it does have an extra burden to try to get these things more or less right.
Finally, I did not find the use of the yokai framing helpful to understanding her or her family. What is frustrating is that there are very touching and original flashes of something. Her father referring to his slow and agonizing death from cancer as "going to the elves" a reference to the The Return of the King or his many Star Trek references speaks to an intriguing and original relation that the family has to the supernatural. How does a Taiwanese doctor get super into Tolkien? How does he square this with his evangelical Christian faith? What does it mean to be a family of Asian American Star Trek fans and how this relates to grief, faith, and ideas of the supernatural? There's an original book in here somewhere, but this book really isn't it. We get little beautiful glimpses and then return to the relentless hammering of the family's lives into the metaphor of the chapter, no explanation as to why he likes Tolkien and finds this useful in thinking through his own death to but we sure do know that in this chapter the dad is also being envisioned as a tsukumogami and find out a lot of wiki facts about that.
So, ultimately I was left with a difficult question. Who is this book for? I kind of assumed as someone who is Japanese American and also studies Chinese and Taiwanese literature, it would be for me. But basically Lin offers very shallow and facile concepts and many of them with little root within at least the Japanese American community with maybe the exception of Urashima Taro. But again, I read a picture book as a kid, my grandmother wasn't telling me the story. She loved Jesus and told me about him instead. And also with the volunteering of extremely basic knowledge (did you know the rat is the first sign of the zodiac, yes again, even I knew this as a very Americanized 13 year old). I don't think this book is for me. It does kind of seem like this book is made for people to whom these basic and well-known facts seem unfamiliar and therefore profound or exotic.
Compared to In the Dream House and The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays, both memoirs I greatly enjoyed, this book isn't really like either of them beyond being formally and conceptually experimental. This book is structured like the kaidan of Japanese summer ghost storytelling and each chapter is named after a kind of Japanese yokai.
The book falls into a familiar formula, Lin gives us a basic Wiki/Poke-dex definition of said yokai paraphrases and quotes scholars who have written about said creature or the folklorists who have written about them, occasionally quotes her research team who speaks Japanese or Mandarin and therefore presumably summarized or interpreted scholarship for her, and then draws a usually somewhat oblique and brief comparison as to why this yokai represents the serious personal issue in her life.
However as a result, this book ends up feeling like half of one thing and two thirds of another. It is both a vague and unpeer reviewed scholarly...something...and then also a memoir about a very particular Okinawan Taiwanese American evangelical Christian family in Chicago.
One of my objections comes from Lin and my own shared ethnic group. I'm Japanese American and we arrived around the same time/had a similar trajectory to Okinawan Americans. Lin is clearly drawing on (or from a more cynical perspective capitalizing on) the idea that yokai are a traditional Japanese folklore, but in my own evangelical Christian Japanese American family and even my more secular sides of the family, no one was really talking about hone onna, or oni baba, or kappas or whatever. While it's heavily implied that yokai are an indigenous way of knowing about mental health, Lin's own engagement with these concepts comes largely from outside research or scholars rather than some sort of family tradition. For example, it would be like interpreting your life by the various Sailor Scouts of the Sailor Moon manga, which is like fine, but that's because *you* learned about and saw something in them that resonated with you, not that because Sailor Moon is a Japanese manga that this is a resonant and inherited part of your DNA or culture. There's nothing wrong with that but I am troubled by the implication that these originary myths cast such long shadows over a diaspora like ours given how changed our culture has become. Most Japanese and Okinawan Americans' ancestors came over in the 1850s-1870s, our relationship to these cultures has diverged pretty greatly from what contemporary Japanese and Okinawans currently practice.
Also, from a scholarly perspective, I have deep deep misgivings about celebrating Yanagita Kunio and folkloric work that he saw as primarily a nation building project FOR JAPAN and saying "this is my Okinawan culture." Lin clearly states that she is aware of the colonial difference between Okinawans and Japanese but this desire conflate colonized culture with a more dominant and marketable colonizer culture troubles me. It's similar on the Taiwanese side. Lin clearly knows at least something about the fraught history of Taiwan's relationship to China and Chineseness. She says so. Yet she'll talk about her Taiwanese heritage and how the Taiwanese relationship to Chineseness is complicated and then say "The Rat is the first year of the Chinese zodiac cycle." That complicated and heterogenous relationship totally flattened and gone by eliding it with mythical Chineseness. She goes on to quote Emperor Wen of Zhou about rats, and sorry, but how does a somewhat mythical Zhou king from 2000 BCE relate to an island that he never ruled and probably didn't even know existed?This desire to completely flatten the subject positions of Okinawans and Taiwanese is honestly deeply disturbing to me and seems disappointing at best and extremely insensitive at worst.
Also Lin refers to this literary figure as Emperor Wen, but I believe he is more commonly called King Wen as the title of emperor 皇 didn't come to be used until the Qin dynasty long after the Zhou may have existed. The Stephen Owen translation of the rat poem she references would certainly do that. See also my point that this is gesturing at scholarship but not peer reviewed. I am also aware that scholarship and ideas can be useful to fictional and nonfictional books and not every book needs 2k citations because most people don't want to read that. Academic books have the well deserved reputation of being very boring. But I think you need to do basic legwork to make sure that your facts are basically correct. And when a memoir relies so much on third party scholarship to support itself, it does have an extra burden to try to get these things more or less right.
Finally, I did not find the use of the yokai framing helpful to understanding her or her family. What is frustrating is that there are very touching and original flashes of something. Her father referring to his slow and agonizing death from cancer as "going to the elves" a reference to the The Return of the King or his many Star Trek references speaks to an intriguing and original relation that the family has to the supernatural. How does a Taiwanese doctor get super into Tolkien? How does he square this with his evangelical Christian faith? What does it mean to be a family of Asian American Star Trek fans and how this relates to grief, faith, and ideas of the supernatural? There's an original book in here somewhere, but this book really isn't it. We get little beautiful glimpses and then return to the relentless hammering of the family's lives into the metaphor of the chapter, no explanation as to why he likes Tolkien and finds this useful in thinking through his own death to but we sure do know that in this chapter the dad is also being envisioned as a tsukumogami and find out a lot of wiki facts about that.
So, ultimately I was left with a difficult question. Who is this book for? I kind of assumed as someone who is Japanese American and also studies Chinese and Taiwanese literature, it would be for me. But basically Lin offers very shallow and facile concepts and many of them with little root within at least the Japanese American community with maybe the exception of Urashima Taro. But again, I read a picture book as a kid, my grandmother wasn't telling me the story. She loved Jesus and told me about him instead. And also with the volunteering of extremely basic knowledge (did you know the rat is the first sign of the zodiac, yes again, even I knew this as a very Americanized 13 year old). I don't think this book is for me. It does kind of seem like this book is made for people to whom these basic and well-known facts seem unfamiliar and therefore profound or exotic.
February 2, 2025
A wonderful memoir that's both quirky and moving.
Quirky is author's decision to interweave her story with creatures from Japanese and Chinese mythology and folklore: from Ryūjin, "the Dragon King who controls the ides and lives in a palace at the bottom of the sea" and the fisherman Urashima Tarō who visited him there; through Kappa river spirits, Oni-Baba ("formerly human women who have transformed into demon hags"), Kitsuke ("fox yōkai"), Yūrei ("spirits who are stuck on this earth, unable to cross over to the afterlife"), Tsukumogami ("tools and other household items that have lived for ninety-nine or one hundred years and have gained a spirit") and many more. Some of her knowledge comes from her grandparents, but she certainly didn't ad lib from there. There's serious research by Michael Dylan Foster, Noriko T. Reider, and many others, all meticulously footnoted. I learned a lot!
Moving are the stories the author tells about her struggle with mental illness, the experiences of the several generations of her wider Asian American family, the slow death of her beloved father and the ensuing grief. A couple of beautifully observed passages that stood out for me:
Quirky is author's decision to interweave her story with creatures from Japanese and Chinese mythology and folklore: from Ryūjin, "the Dragon King who controls the ides and lives in a palace at the bottom of the sea" and the fisherman Urashima Tarō who visited him there; through Kappa river spirits, Oni-Baba ("formerly human women who have transformed into demon hags"), Kitsuke ("fox yōkai"), Yūrei ("spirits who are stuck on this earth, unable to cross over to the afterlife"), Tsukumogami ("tools and other household items that have lived for ninety-nine or one hundred years and have gained a spirit") and many more. Some of her knowledge comes from her grandparents, but she certainly didn't ad lib from there. There's serious research by Michael Dylan Foster, Noriko T. Reider, and many others, all meticulously footnoted. I learned a lot!
Moving are the stories the author tells about her struggle with mental illness, the experiences of the several generations of her wider Asian American family, the slow death of her beloved father and the ensuing grief. A couple of beautifully observed passages that stood out for me:
I know there is a difference between reading about a place and going to a place and descending from a place and being from a place. When we walked in Taiwan, unlike in Japan, it felt like a land I loved but did not recognize. I did not know what to say without flattening or essentializing. The lands are separated by all that water between. (p.255)
It is easy to probe--to interrogate--to love--the dead because in the end they do not require much of us except that we remember them; how much harder to love the living, who have wounds that we could actually attend. (p.298)Warmly recommended!
January 21, 2024
An innovative memoir written through the lens of Japanese folklore, especially of the figures seen in the Hyakki yagyō, the parade of the hundred demons.
Sectioned in the four part narrative structure of Chinese poetry and beautifully illustrated by her sister Cori Nakamura, the author relays her life touching very personal themes tinged with rage, grief and joy.
The first part of the book is mainly about her learning to deal with the Rage, which is what she calls her bipolar disorder before she even knows how to recognise it in herself: it’s incredibly immersive, to the point that I found it difficult to read sometimes — it doesn’t shy away from the ugly truths. It’s an honesty that I appreciated, but one that I wish I was better at dealing with.
She then talks about the difficulty she had with the premature grief of losing her father, dying of cancer, while she was attempting to get pregnant — and the subsequent juxtaposition of their two bodies while she does get pregnant, lying on the couch for lack of energy: her heavy with life, him with death.
I feel like I lost interest in the book halfway through, which is a bit sad to say when you’re reading about someone’s real life, but I still appreciated Jami Nakamura’s efforts in trying to convey her attachment to her heritage and to the people in her life.
Sectioned in the four part narrative structure of Chinese poetry and beautifully illustrated by her sister Cori Nakamura, the author relays her life touching very personal themes tinged with rage, grief and joy.
The first part of the book is mainly about her learning to deal with the Rage, which is what she calls her bipolar disorder before she even knows how to recognise it in herself: it’s incredibly immersive, to the point that I found it difficult to read sometimes — it doesn’t shy away from the ugly truths. It’s an honesty that I appreciated, but one that I wish I was better at dealing with.
She then talks about the difficulty she had with the premature grief of losing her father, dying of cancer, while she was attempting to get pregnant — and the subsequent juxtaposition of their two bodies while she does get pregnant, lying on the couch for lack of energy: her heavy with life, him with death.
I feel like I lost interest in the book halfway through, which is a bit sad to say when you’re reading about someone’s real life, but I still appreciated Jami Nakamura’s efforts in trying to convey her attachment to her heritage and to the people in her life.
December 6, 2023
Thank you to @bibliolifestyle & Mariner Books for the gifted copy
In this unique, original, and imaginative speculative memoir, Lin blends Japanese myth, Taiwanese folklore, family history, and personal experience to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness and grief.
While it took a moment to acclimate to the writing style, I found myself captivated by Lin's narrative. By the end, I was utterly enamored with this unique exploration of life with bipolar disorder.
"Upstairs, the girls told each other why we should live. If we could not believe it for ourselves, we believed it for each other."
Lin's candidness about her battles with bipolar, particularly during her tumultuous teenage years, moved me to tears. The visceral portrayal of her yearning for the pain to cease evoked a profound empathy for young Lin. The emotional journey she shares is both raw and enlightening.
The relationships depicted in NIGHT PARADE add layers of warmth and complexity, especially her special bond with her father. The illustrations by her younger sister contribute a personal touch, reinforcing the theme of family love that permeates the book. Lin's explanation of bipolar disorder to her daughter, reminiscent of ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS (Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow), showcases the delicate balance between honesty and compassion.
"I tell so many stories without fully understanding what lies beneath the surface. This is the limit of my present knowledge, the way I connect the dots at this single moment."
The exploration of Lin's ancestral history, from Taiwanese descendants surviving Japanese colonization to her mother's side experiencing Japanese concentration camps during World War II, adds a poignant layer to the narrative. These sobering histories resonate not only with Lin but with any Asian Americans whose families endured the unimaginable.
"There is a nagging feeling that I should only tell the stories received orally from my ancestors instead of those I find in books. I think this is a common diaspora anguish, for those of us fractured from places, narratives. "And yet without research, without looking beyond, we would be hamstrung only by what our ancestors shared. We can treasure what they gifted us, while also acknowledging that in certain cases they did not tell us enough, or that what they said was wrong, or was right for that time and place but needs to change now."
The Night Parade is a moving tribute to ancestors who defied the odds, faced unthinkable hardships, and whose stories can only be reconstructed through tales passed down through generations.
"So maybe this isn't a story about ghosts, but a story about telling a story about ghosts. About how to remember while moving forward. You are drawn to these myths because they change."
For those who appreciate experimental writing, vibe-heavy and plot-light narratives, and speculative memoirs, NIGHT PARADE is a must-read. It spoke to me on a personal level, and its impact will linger in my thoughts for a long time.
In this unique, original, and imaginative speculative memoir, Lin blends Japanese myth, Taiwanese folklore, family history, and personal experience to shift the cultural narrative around mental illness and grief.
While it took a moment to acclimate to the writing style, I found myself captivated by Lin's narrative. By the end, I was utterly enamored with this unique exploration of life with bipolar disorder.
"Upstairs, the girls told each other why we should live. If we could not believe it for ourselves, we believed it for each other."
Lin's candidness about her battles with bipolar, particularly during her tumultuous teenage years, moved me to tears. The visceral portrayal of her yearning for the pain to cease evoked a profound empathy for young Lin. The emotional journey she shares is both raw and enlightening.
The relationships depicted in NIGHT PARADE add layers of warmth and complexity, especially her special bond with her father. The illustrations by her younger sister contribute a personal touch, reinforcing the theme of family love that permeates the book. Lin's explanation of bipolar disorder to her daughter, reminiscent of ALL THE LITTLE BIRD-HEARTS (Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow), showcases the delicate balance between honesty and compassion.
"I tell so many stories without fully understanding what lies beneath the surface. This is the limit of my present knowledge, the way I connect the dots at this single moment."
The exploration of Lin's ancestral history, from Taiwanese descendants surviving Japanese colonization to her mother's side experiencing Japanese concentration camps during World War II, adds a poignant layer to the narrative. These sobering histories resonate not only with Lin but with any Asian Americans whose families endured the unimaginable.
"There is a nagging feeling that I should only tell the stories received orally from my ancestors instead of those I find in books. I think this is a common diaspora anguish, for those of us fractured from places, narratives. "And yet without research, without looking beyond, we would be hamstrung only by what our ancestors shared. We can treasure what they gifted us, while also acknowledging that in certain cases they did not tell us enough, or that what they said was wrong, or was right for that time and place but needs to change now."
The Night Parade is a moving tribute to ancestors who defied the odds, faced unthinkable hardships, and whose stories can only be reconstructed through tales passed down through generations.
"So maybe this isn't a story about ghosts, but a story about telling a story about ghosts. About how to remember while moving forward. You are drawn to these myths because they change."
For those who appreciate experimental writing, vibe-heavy and plot-light narratives, and speculative memoirs, NIGHT PARADE is a must-read. It spoke to me on a personal level, and its impact will linger in my thoughts for a long time.
February 4, 2024
Lin offers remarkable insight, her academic understanding of both illness and narrative informing an unusually keen self-awareness. Her experience of mental illness defies the story we’re comfortable with (“things were bad, then they got better, now I am healed and strong”), and she doesn’t shy away from that. Using the traditional Japanese narrative structure (four acts), she tells a different story, one that’s perhaps more true and realistic, but challenging to read at times.
My full review of The Night Parade can be found on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
My full review of The Night Parade can be found on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
March 4, 2024
4. 5 / Wow I loved this!! An incredibly unique memoir, combining personal narrative with stories and artwork containing folklore and traditional creatures. Lin writes about learning to live as a human and a mother with bipolar disorder, while losing her father to a long illness at the same time. Very heartbreaking, very precious, I recommend so so much!
March 17, 2024
This book, the November, 2023 selection of the Otherppl Book Club, is a work of complete beauty. If the cover does not make you want to pick it up, I feel sorry for you. But the entire book is a work of art filled with illustrations by the author’s sister Cori, painted in gouache and watercolor, combining the yokai (Japanese ghosts, demons, monsters, shapeshifters, tricksters, and other kinds of supernatural beings and mysterious phenomena) with contemporary Japanese anime.
That last paragraph is my attempt to prepare you for entrance into the state of foreign and confusing reality I found myself in when I started reading. Apparently, I am drawn to such states as evidenced by the number of books I read that induce them. However, this is what the author calls a speculative memoir and is very much a Japanese/American tale. Best of all, it works.
Jami Nakamura Lin suffered from bi-polar disorder but no one, including her doctor father, knew what was the trouble. He thought it might be depression. In fact, he proscribed anti-depressants for her in her troubled teens, but those medications did nothing for the periods of extreme rage which preceded the depression. It is to her parents’ credit that she was in no way punished or berated but always had their care and concern.
To calm herself or cheer herself up she began to study Japanese folklore. Eventually that became her main educational route and rewarded her with fellowships and entrance into writer’s conferences. When she was finally properly diagnosed and proscribed the proper medications and counselling, she met and fell in love with a Jewish man who became her husband and helpmeet. I was delighted to find that the deeply Christian Jami and her Jewish husband lived in perfect harmony, had a daughter, and found healthy ways to deal with her bipolar episodes.
In writing the memoir, Jami chose a mix of incident, folklore, emotion and even a bit of lightheartedness that began to grow on me and work on me. I thank her for ridding me of fixed ideas I had about mental illness. I have always been fearful of people with this affliction and was raised to think people should just get over it and pull their weight. I gained a new awareness about some of the people in my life whom I could not understand before.
That last paragraph is my attempt to prepare you for entrance into the state of foreign and confusing reality I found myself in when I started reading. Apparently, I am drawn to such states as evidenced by the number of books I read that induce them. However, this is what the author calls a speculative memoir and is very much a Japanese/American tale. Best of all, it works.
Jami Nakamura Lin suffered from bi-polar disorder but no one, including her doctor father, knew what was the trouble. He thought it might be depression. In fact, he proscribed anti-depressants for her in her troubled teens, but those medications did nothing for the periods of extreme rage which preceded the depression. It is to her parents’ credit that she was in no way punished or berated but always had their care and concern.
To calm herself or cheer herself up she began to study Japanese folklore. Eventually that became her main educational route and rewarded her with fellowships and entrance into writer’s conferences. When she was finally properly diagnosed and proscribed the proper medications and counselling, she met and fell in love with a Jewish man who became her husband and helpmeet. I was delighted to find that the deeply Christian Jami and her Jewish husband lived in perfect harmony, had a daughter, and found healthy ways to deal with her bipolar episodes.
In writing the memoir, Jami chose a mix of incident, folklore, emotion and even a bit of lightheartedness that began to grow on me and work on me. I thank her for ridding me of fixed ideas I had about mental illness. I have always been fearful of people with this affliction and was raised to think people should just get over it and pull their weight. I gained a new awareness about some of the people in my life whom I could not understand before.
September 12, 2023
Jami Nakamura Lin has a gift of using elegant, piercing, and poetic language to describe experiences that are normally extremely hard to convey. These honest and raw portrayals of her life combine with a fascinating exploration of the Yōkai of Japanese folklore to create a nuanced exploration of story, family, mental illness, and courage. This is a book about discovering identity among the mystery of the human condition and confronting the entirety of our interior landscape.
December 29, 2023
Simply breathtaking.
June 21, 2023
MAGNIFICENT!!! I need to collect my thoughts more before writing a fully effusive review because Jami Nakamura Lin blew my goddamn mind with this book!
January 5, 2024
2🌟 - Hear me out.. Not a horrible book! Just not for me! There were some parts that I enjoyed. For instance, I really liked the bits that were specifically about her and her family. The mythology part of the memoir was interesting, but there were too many times where the mythology aspect seemed like a copy and paste from a textbook or website. Those same parts just lost me and felt a bit repetitive. I am glad to see that others loved this book.. unfortunately it just wasn’t for me!
Happy reading babes! 🤎
Happy reading babes! 🤎
December 20, 2023
Reading this gave me the unique experience of learning, feeling, grieving, and thinking deeply while remaining curious and open instead of overwhelmed by the range of those emotions. With this work, Jami Nakamura Lin achieved her dad’s charge of “adding more jokes” by telling a deep truth while evoking levity and joy.
December 17, 2023
MY HANDS ARE UP TOWARDS THE SKY. SO GRATEFUL.
::
Jami Nakamura Lin's disabled Nikkei speculative memoir was a masterclass in lineage weaving and multiethnic/multiracial abundance! The spirits are so close with this one!
::
Jami Nakamura Lin's disabled Nikkei speculative memoir was a masterclass in lineage weaving and multiethnic/multiracial abundance! The spirits are so close with this one!
2023
October 15, 2025ANHPI TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books
February 26, 2025
i picked up this book for its thread- the japanese, taiwanese, and okinawan legends that are woven throughout. however, the memoir content itself came to be so poignant and beautiful that it had me crying in the gym.
i think i was surprised by the content until a ways in, not fully expecting the bipolar tale. also was kind of surprised about the miscarriage aspect, though not sure why. the part that i really really loved though was about her father and his passing.
i loved the way the author talked about ritual with passing, and described their family.
one to come back to. the progression of review went 4 then 3 then 4 then 5 so i think ill land on 4 as a medium but really 4.5.
i think i was surprised by the content until a ways in, not fully expecting the bipolar tale. also was kind of surprised about the miscarriage aspect, though not sure why. the part that i really really loved though was about her father and his passing.
i loved the way the author talked about ritual with passing, and described their family.
one to come back to. the progression of review went 4 then 3 then 4 then 5 so i think ill land on 4 as a medium but really 4.5.
May 9, 2024
This is such a unique book! I’m really impressed by the concept and its execution. I’ve read my fair share of memoirs, and this one definitely stands out. I had limited knowledge of yokai going into this, and I really enjoyed each chapter’s intro to a new character. Plus, the illustrations are irresistible.
I really enjoyed the author’s discussions on cultural heritage and the child-of-immigrant experience. They felt refreshingly honest and relatable. We need more books like this, I think.
I really enjoyed the author’s discussions on cultural heritage and the child-of-immigrant experience. They felt refreshingly honest and relatable. We need more books like this, I think.
July 20, 2025
'The Night Parade' was one of our book club picks and my first speculative memoir. I honestly went in with pretty low expectations, but I ended up genuinely enjoying it. The combination of cultural storytelling with imaginative elements captivated my attention, and I enjoyed how the book tackled themes of mental illness and grief with compassion.
June 13, 2024
The writing style, the illustrations, the philosophical musings on mental health, cultural preservation, and the transient nature of memory being expressed through metaphors of folklore were breathtaking.
May 25, 2024
I loved this!! Though it feels a bit disorienting at the start, I feel that all the concepts in here came together really well by the end. I loved the structure and learning about the Japanese folklore, and I felt the author did a fantastic job chronicling her story in that framework.
April 6, 2024
This is now hands down one of my favorite books— I cried so, so much at so many parts of this.
December 22, 2023
I'm not usually a memoir person, but the way this book mixed folklore and personal experiences was a truly impressive feat. A book about motherhood, death, and the stories we tell, this book pulled me in right away. The writing itself was straightforward and made it easy to just sit and read page after page. I really loved the way the book used the various yokai as themes for each essay while connecting all of them together under the idea of a night parade of a hundred demons.
December 4, 2023
Wow... just wow. What a remarkable book!
The Night Parade is a breathtaking memoir about mental illness and grief explored through the lens of Japanese folklore. Nakamura Lin writes with raw honesty and so much heart. The Night Parade has got to be one of my favourite books this year!
The author writes about feeling monstrous most of her life- living with undiagnosed bipolar can do that to you- something I understand all too well thanks to my own struggles with mental health (in my case it is borderline personality disorder) Jami Nakamura Lin says what I think is on most of our minds and for that I respect her. Her writing is poetic and stunning without being flowery- flowing so well I often forgot I was reading. I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese folklore- especially tales of yokai and the night parade of one hundred demons- so I was delighted by the myths and legends Nakamura Lin wove in amongst her own stories and memories. This is not to mention the gorgeous illustrations done by the author’s younger sister that really added to the experience of reading The Night Parade. I cannot praise this book enough!
It is a rare and beautiful thing to find yourself within the pages of someone else’s memories but I did so in this book. Nakamura Lin’s journey is so uniquely hers but also so like many of ours. Not only did I find myself in it but also strength and hope. I would recommend this book to everyone- whether or not you suffer from mental illness. Though The Night Parade draws on the narrative of the supernatural and otherworldly it is so remarkably and painfully human.
If you had any doubts about picking up The Night Parade do yourself a favour and cast them aside. Absolutely everyone should read it!
The Night Parade is a breathtaking memoir about mental illness and grief explored through the lens of Japanese folklore. Nakamura Lin writes with raw honesty and so much heart. The Night Parade has got to be one of my favourite books this year!
The author writes about feeling monstrous most of her life- living with undiagnosed bipolar can do that to you- something I understand all too well thanks to my own struggles with mental health (in my case it is borderline personality disorder) Jami Nakamura Lin says what I think is on most of our minds and for that I respect her. Her writing is poetic and stunning without being flowery- flowing so well I often forgot I was reading. I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese folklore- especially tales of yokai and the night parade of one hundred demons- so I was delighted by the myths and legends Nakamura Lin wove in amongst her own stories and memories. This is not to mention the gorgeous illustrations done by the author’s younger sister that really added to the experience of reading The Night Parade. I cannot praise this book enough!
It is a rare and beautiful thing to find yourself within the pages of someone else’s memories but I did so in this book. Nakamura Lin’s journey is so uniquely hers but also so like many of ours. Not only did I find myself in it but also strength and hope. I would recommend this book to everyone- whether or not you suffer from mental illness. Though The Night Parade draws on the narrative of the supernatural and otherworldly it is so remarkably and painfully human.
If you had any doubts about picking up The Night Parade do yourself a favour and cast them aside. Absolutely everyone should read it!
December 2, 2023
(3.25 stars) The speculative/metaphorical memoir genre has led to some of my all-time favorite nonfiction: In the Dream House, How Far the Light Reaches among them. So I am devastated when a book written in a similar style falls relatively flat to me. It's still a good memoir, but allow me to explain.
First: a personal bias: I was not expecting death to be such a prevalent theme. I figured it would be mentioned, but it was very pervasive and that topic often gives me anxiety and existential dread. This book was a lot sadder than anticipated and if I had known that I probably wouldn't have picked it up.
The premise of combining a memoir about mental illness and pregnancy and grief with a Japanese four-act narrative structure is brilliant. I enjoyed learning about yokai and other figures of legend from various cultures and I think I probably missed out by listening to this as an audiobook and not seeing the illustrations in the text.
However, some of the allusions to mythology and folklore seemed to fragment and confuse the memoir narrative. At times I felt like I wasn't drawing the proper comparisons between the memories presented and their legend/storytelling counterparts. I really wanted to stay engaged in the story, but I felt like I lost the thread a few too many times.
There's definitely something here to learn and reflect on, and this format is unique and thought-provoking. I might just not be its audience.
content warnings:
First: a personal bias: I was not expecting death to be such a prevalent theme. I figured it would be mentioned, but it was very pervasive and that topic often gives me anxiety and existential dread. This book was a lot sadder than anticipated and if I had known that I probably wouldn't have picked it up.
The premise of combining a memoir about mental illness and pregnancy and grief with a Japanese four-act narrative structure is brilliant. I enjoyed learning about yokai and other figures of legend from various cultures and I think I probably missed out by listening to this as an audiobook and not seeing the illustrations in the text.
However, some of the allusions to mythology and folklore seemed to fragment and confuse the memoir narrative. At times I felt like I wasn't drawing the proper comparisons between the memories presented and their legend/storytelling counterparts. I really wanted to stay engaged in the story, but I felt like I lost the thread a few too many times.
There's definitely something here to learn and reflect on, and this format is unique and thought-provoking. I might just not be its audience.
content warnings:
November 13, 2023
“Sometimes it’s hard to decipher if what we carry with us is a trophy or a wound.”
Thank you to Bibliolifestyle and Mariner Books for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a speculative memoir that chronicles the author’s struggles with mental health and her trying to come to terms with her father’s death. Interwoven are these incredible stories of Japanese yokai, and Nakamura uses these stories so spectacularly throughout. Her sister, Cori, also provides these stunning illustrations that really pull the entire book together.
Nakamura’s story is compelling, and is filled with such vulnerable, raw moments. This is by far the most unique memoir I’ve ever read. As difficult as the subject matter can be at times, her writing is so poignant and beautiful that I couldn't stop reading. The yokai stories are so fascinating and the illustrations are just stunning.
“The archive of my life is the archive of my ghosts. Reading it, you would think my entire life was haunted.”
This is as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching, and it’s one of my favorite memoirs I’ve ever read.
Thank you to Bibliolifestyle and Mariner Books for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a speculative memoir that chronicles the author’s struggles with mental health and her trying to come to terms with her father’s death. Interwoven are these incredible stories of Japanese yokai, and Nakamura uses these stories so spectacularly throughout. Her sister, Cori, also provides these stunning illustrations that really pull the entire book together.
Nakamura’s story is compelling, and is filled with such vulnerable, raw moments. This is by far the most unique memoir I’ve ever read. As difficult as the subject matter can be at times, her writing is so poignant and beautiful that I couldn't stop reading. The yokai stories are so fascinating and the illustrations are just stunning.
“The archive of my life is the archive of my ghosts. Reading it, you would think my entire life was haunted.”
This is as beautiful as it is heart-wrenching, and it’s one of my favorite memoirs I’ve ever read.
October 18, 2023
While this memoir has been compared to Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, I found The Night Parade to be a one-of-a-kind read. In it, Jami Nakamura Lin uses Japanese mythology to explore her experience of bipolar disorder, parenthood, partnership, and her father’s death from cancer. Lin describes her memoir as a book-length essay—a form especially suited for uncertainty and wondering. She employs an impressive repertoire of various points of view, including storytelling, third person past, second person present (as if addressing the reader directly), narrating herself as heroine, and monologuing to her daughter. I especially enjoyed how she invokes the imagery of a parade of spirits as she progresses through labor overnight. Lin is a deep thinker. I so relished her reflections and questions throughout. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.
December 5, 2023
My only regret about this book is that I listened to the audiobook versus picking up the actual book. (It sounded interesting and I needed something to listen to preoccupy my mind on a return flight.) I saw some of the illustrations that the author’s sister made for this book and they looked gorgeous! This is definitely a book that you should “read” instead of listening to!
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