We chat with author Catherine Cho about The Devoted, which is an emotionally transportive literary debut about family and fate, and follows a young Korean woman becomes entrenched in an infamous crime organization—and the dangerous world she once sought to escape.
Hi, Catherine! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, I’m Catherine Cho, I’m an author and literary agent. I published a memoir in 2020 called Inferno, but The Devoted is my first step to fiction. I’m originally from Kentucky but have been in London for over 10 years.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
When I was a kid, my parents would drop us off at the library after school – it was like built in childcare. I spent hours reading, and books were always my escape. I think naturally as a reader, you then become a writer, although most of my early writing was journaling. I still love to keep a journal. It’s also the reason I became a literary agent, and I feel so lucky that my work is something I’m passionate about.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis – the first book I remember obsessing over. I was in second grade, and I thought it was so magical.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Probably Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was so masterfully written, and I think it was the first time I felt like I wanted to understand the craft of it, of how it had unfolded.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. I’ve re-read it so many times and each time, I just fall in love with the characters and the story.
Your debut novel, The Devoted, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Yearning, romantic, vicious, melancholic, hopeful
What can readers expect?
The Devoted is set in Hong Kong, it’s about a young Korean woman whose father is a leader in the criminal underworld. Years later, she’s living a respectable life, but when her son is kidnapped, she’s pulled back into that world and into the orbit of her childhood love who is now a Triad boss himself. It’s a story of yearning, about fate. There’s a lot of inspiration from early k-dramas and Wong Kar Wai. I wanted it to be both atmospheric and propulsive, it’s a portrait of a woman who is growing up, who is trying to find her fate, set against the threat of a world of crime.
Where did the inspiration for The Devoted come from?
I spent several years living in Hong Kong after university. I had followed a relationship there. It was my first time living in Asia, and as a Korean-American, it was such a cultural shock for me. The relationship I was in was a violent one, and he lived in this very affluent part of Hong Kong, and I do write about it in Inferno, but I ended up leaving in the middle of the night. In Inferno, the memoir ends with with me disappearing into the streets, but in reality, I lived in Hong Kong for another two years. I wanted to finish law school, and when I left, I found myself in this mirror world, a side of Hong Kong that had been existing all along. It’s a place that has always fascinated me, and perhaps haunted me, because I didn’t leave on my own terms, and I suppose by claiming it in fiction, I was able to set that city and that chapter of my life aside.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved all my characters, but particularly I loved writing the childhood scenes. Eunha, my main character has a beautiful relationship with her older brother. They live an isolated but idyllic life by the sea, and I love all the scenes with the ocean and the kind of purity of childhood. I also loved writing about the markets and the food (I ended up having to cut a lot of cooking scenes because there wasn’t really a purpose to them, other than getting to talk about food), but I really enjoyed the process of discovering my characters and feeling deeply for them.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I find drafting very difficult. I much prefer editing, but to actually draft and come up with a narrative and a plot (which is so elemental to writing actually, so it’s sad that I struggle with this), but I really had a hard time. I knew what I wanted the story to feel like, and I knew where I wanted it to go, but I didn’t know how to get it there. It took me a long time to figure it out. I was also trying to learn how to structure a novel, the rules of fiction are very different from non-fiction, and so it was a steep learning curve for me.
What’s next for you?
I would love to write more novels, but I’m not a writer with a feast of ideas, so I have to wait until one really sticks with me. I would love to write something speculative.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I got to be an early reader of these upcoming novels – EXIT PARTY, the new Emily St John Mandel and UNDERSTORY by Chloe Benjamin. I loved them both, and I’m excited to pick them up when they’re officially published. They are both speculative novels, and I so admired their scope and ambition, and the way they reflected the truths of our world through genre.
I really enjoyed WHISTLER by Ann Patchett and THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY by Elizabeth Strout, I read every book they write.
