An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Nonfiction“A poignant, personal, sometimes painful chronicle of self-awareness and understanding.” —Kirkus Reviews“As she takes us across three continents, from childhood to middle age, Helena Rho shares the raw truth of what it’s meant to strive for decades to be a good daughter, sister, mother, wife, and physician, all the while navigating the contradictory demands of Eastern and Western cultures. This is a powerfully heartfelt story about seeking the gravity of a place to belong while overcoming regrets and losses along the way. Her honesty is searing and, in the end, inspiring.” —Julia Glass, author of Vigil Harbor and the National Book Award–winning Three Junes“In her devastating memoir, American Seoul, Helena Rho underscores the central truth of being alive: that while we are often helpless to prevent our suffering at the hands of others, we are not helpless to reimagine ourselves, to invent ourselves anew. There are second acts in American lives, and Rho beautifully teaches us what living means after the anguish. She is among the rarest of memoirists who can alchemize experience into art.” —William Giraldi, author of The Hero’s Body“A compelling coming-of-age story of women confronting clashing cultures and helpless alienation written with passion and heroic honesty.” —Lee Gutkind, editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine“In her riveting debut memoir, American Seoul, Helena Rho writes, ‘Perhaps everyone has a flaming wreckage of a life. We can choose to watch it burn. Or we can take the jagged pieces and make a new life with the repaired seams evident, stark and startling and beautiful.’ Here in my margin, I wrote, ‘Ars memoria,’ by which I meant, This is what a memoirist does—what the best memoirists do: they cauterize their words in those flames. Here in this passage, Rho foreshadows herself, for she has written her life as a book that is stark and startling and beautiful.” —Julie Marie Wade, author of Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing“American Seoul is a redemptive, often harrowing, and irresistible memoir. Helena Rho handles the complexities of deceit, betrayal, and dire family secrets with intelligence, grace, and courage. Just when you think things can’t get worse, they get worse. But Helena clears the wreckage and moves on to become the person, the writer, she dreamed of being. This is a story so good, so exquisitely told, you’ll want to stand up and cheer when you’ve finished.” —John Dufresne, author of No Regrets, Coyote“A heart-filled, hard-won, and transcendent story of immigration and the generations after by a woman raised in a culture of high expectations. Exhausted, emotionally drained, and suffering from personal and intergenerational trauma, the author must also navigate rivers of the many personal, cultural, and professional ideals of what it means to be strong and confident, humble and self-sacrificing. Successful. Rho became a doctor—for others—and then a writer—for herself—and in making that choice created a way to remake her life. She wrote her way back to her Korean-ness, to wholeness, to becoming Heeseon again, and in doing so brings us all back to wholeness, compassion, and kindness.” —Jenny Forrester, author of Narrow River, Wide Sky“Helena Rho’s American Seoul is the triumphant story of one woman’s fight to reclaim herself, her body, her Korean identity, and her right to tell her story. Rho shows us the cost of being a daughter in a family that prefers sons, a Korean immigrant in an America that celebrates whiteness, and a doctor when her heart longed for a life in the arts. Thankfully, Rho bravely challenged and ultimately discarded the toxic ideas that almost broke her body and her spirit. American Seoul is a gift to the world and a light for anyone still searching for a way out of a life that chafes the spirit.” —Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group“Helena Rho’s strength is unmistakable from the first pages of her ferocious memoir. Weaving threads of love, trauma, family, and the sometimes long, long journey toward home, Rho shows us how we can be made and unmade and made again. American Seoul is an unflinching chronicle of womanhood, motherhood, and selfhood, told with stark honesty and grace. This book is aria, howl, and lullaby—an unforgettable song.” —Chelsea Biondolillo, author of The Skinned Bird“In her moving memoir, American Seoul, Helena Rho writes unflinchingly about misogyny, racism, and abuse. Her beautiful prose fuels a clear-eyed exploration of her life and its joys and challenges. A memorable debut.” —Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day“American Seoul is a memoir that uncovers the in-between moments of a life—the shock of a car accident and the fluidity of a mind on the move in the milliseconds of the collision; the speculative spaces of the past in Korea to understand the frailties of parents; the abuse one endures and the trauma that shadows. Helena Rho shares her multiple lives: daughter, mother, wife, doctor, woman. It is a breathtaking tango that circles cultural identity, self-doubt and worth, and the vulnerabilities of living in a country that gives little and takes a lot.” —Ira Sukrungruang, author of This Jade World“Helena Rho’s American Seoul is as breathtaking as it is wise. This is the story of one brave woman’s journey through family, culture, and identity. In the journey from discipline and intellect to compassion and creativity, Helena generously maps out for us how much can be taken as well as how much can be given when one must escape cultural and familial inscription in order to live fully, love fully, and thrive. Sometimes stepping off the path takes more than a leap of faith. Sometimes the leap takes your whole heart.” —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water
