Dissident

From the PEN/Malamud Award-winning author of Lucky Girls comes a bold, intricately woven first novel about an enigmatic stranger who disrupts the life of one American family.

Yuan Zhao, a celebrated Chinese performance artist and political dissident, has accepted a one year's artist's residency in Los Angeles. He is to be a Visiting Scholar at the St. Anselm's School for Girls, teaching advanced art, and hosted by one of the school's most devoted families: the wealthy if dysfunctional Traverses. But when their guest arrives, the Traverses are preoccupied with their own problems. Cece — devoted mother and contemporary art enthusiast — worries about the recent arrest of her son, Max. Unable to communicate with her husband, Gordon, a psychiatrist distracted by his passion for genealogical research, she turns to Gordon's wayward brother, Phil. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Olivia Travers is just relieved that her classmates seem to be ignoring the weird Chinese art teacher living in her pool house — at least until a brilliant but troublesome new student appears in his class.

The dissident, for his part, is delighted to be left alone. His relationship to the 1989 Democracy Movement and his past in a Beijing underground artists' community together give him reason for not wanting to be scrutinized too carefully. The trouble starts when he and his American hosts begin to see one another with clearer eyes.

A novel about secrets, love, and the shining chaos of everyday American life, The Dissident is a remarkable and surprising group portrait, done with a light, sure hand. Reviewing Lucky Girls, the Seattle Times praised Freudenberger's "merciless and often hilarious eye for family dynamics, and her equally sharp eye for cultures in collision." These talents and others are on full display here, as the author captures her characters in their struggles with art, with identity — and with one another. As the New York Times Book Review observed, "Young writers as ambitious — and as good — as Nell Freudenberger give us a reason for hope."

"The book is significantly flawed, by awkwardly handled exposition and several uncomfortably close echoes of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. Still, its vivid characters and page-turning plot make it a more than commendable first novel." Kirkus Reviews

"[A] charming, breezy read....[Freudenberger's] characters, while inviting, rarely feel complicated enough to respond to her story's delicately layered conceit — or guard its not-so-jarring secret." The Village Voice

"The overall effect...can be somewhat dry, unhelped by the occasional stiff attempts at humor. Nonetheless, Ms. Freudenberger's examination of the effect of lies in art and life succeeds in revealing interesting truths about both." Wall Street Journal

"Though The Dissident is emphatically a first novel...such moments of crystalline clarity are themselves 'rare birds,' the stuff of second, third and fourth novels. This is cause for celebration, not schadenfreudenberger — but don't hold your breath." Los Angeles Times

"The Dissident offers readers a profusion of reflections and insights that will linger long after the book has been read. Unfortunately, there is also a clutter of derivative images that prove distracting and less than engaging..." San Francisco Chronicle

"The Dissident offers readers a profusion of reflections and insights that will linger long after the book has been read. Unfortunately, there is also a clutter of derivative images that prove distracting and less than engaging..." San Francisco Chronicle

"Despite its neat plotting, this novel is unmistakably slow — no hyperventilating for Freudenberger, no messy clamoring for multiple literary references — and it does the unglamorous work of chipping the hard shells off its movingly drawn characters. The Dissident is not the kind of book that knocks a reader down, but it does have the power to linger." Anna Godbersen, Esquire (read the entire Esquire review)

A famous performance artist and political activist accepts an artist's residency in Los Angeles, where he is hosted by a wealthy Beverly Hills family. As he becomes increasingly tangled in their lives, the author opens the door on his past in Beijing, revealing an artistic subculture at the height of its influence.

Nell Freudenberger's collection of stories, Lucky Girls, was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2005 Freudenberger was the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in New York City.

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