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Staff Pick
Don’t let the title fool you: My Year Abroad might summon up visions of a college student finding themselves while backpacking across Europe. Let that be Chang-rae Lee’s first gentle jab at the reader — this is not a conventional coming-of-age novel, and while its unassuming narrator may say otherwise, Tiller Bardmon is not your average 20-year-old. Quick-witted and perceptive but lacking in drive or direction, Tiller has been stumbling through life in an affluent New Jersey suburb when he meets Pong, a charismatic entrepreneur who takes Tiller under his wing and steers him into increasingly unlikely (and dangerous) situations in exotic locales — from Hawaii to Shenzhen to Macau. Alternating between two time frames, My Year Abroad contrasts Tiller’s business adventures with a much quieter domestic life in a landlocked U.S. town referred to as “Stagno.” Alluring, unpredictable, and deliciously nuanced, My Year Abroad is a spicy feast of a novel, as much an emotional experience as it is a sensory one. Recommended By Renee P., Powells.com
Upon first read, award-winning author Chang-rae Lee’s latest novel, My Year Abroad, is a surreal picaresque that revels in Lee’s facility for humor and pyrotechnic prose. Pulling its young hero, Tiller, from the comic banality of suburban America into an intoxicating, if terrifying, journey through the casinos, brothels, karaoke clubs, and luxury mansions of Asia, the novel’s indelible cast of characters and increasingly outlandish scenes made us laugh out loud. But beneath its rowdy exterior, My Year Abroad is a tender work, keenly interested in what it means — and what it takes — to be fully present for oneself and others. Recommended By Rhianna W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee today?" —Los Angeles Times
"One of our most silken storytellers." —The Boston Globe
"An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements — and this is a book that moves...My Year Abroad is a wild ride--a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia." — Vogue
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure — and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented prot g , and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion — on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
Review
"Lee is supreme, and this high-velocity, shocking, and wise novel, avidly promoted, is emitting an irresistible magnetic force." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"This literary whirlwind has Lee running on all cylinders." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Lee is masterful from passage to passage....A sage study in how readily we're undone by our appetites." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"My Year Abroad is a novel of astonishing wit and wisdom and scope, a globe-spanning story about those powerful first youthful encounters with love and evil and heartbreak and beauty. It's also, by the way, enormously fun to read. Chang-rae Lee is, clearly, a master." Nathan Hill, New York Times-bestselling author of The Nix
Review
"For a quarter century now, from book to book, [Chang-rae Lee] has explored the ever-urgent themes of alienation, assimilation, and identity with unmatched assurance and acuity. He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Interpreter of Maladies
Review
"My Year Abroad is a strange and stirring amalgam: a tender novel about business, ambition, and appetite. With great generosity, and in a searching, democratic spirit, Chang-rae Lee describes the enticements, mirages, pleasures and catastrophes that attend not only the pursuit of wealth but the pursuit of happiness in all its forms, romantic, domestic, and, yes, gustatory. In Pong Lou, he has given American literature a character who deserves his place among other tragic dreamers, from Gatsby to J.R." Jeffrey Eugenides, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Middlesex
Review
"A syncopated surprise, with an ending that will be sure to leave you texting all your friends." Vulture
Review
"Dickens meets globalism in this new work from one of our most celebrated writers." OprahMag.com
Review
"By turns dark, humorous and almost sneakily insightful." GoodHousekeeping.com
Review
"[An] electric new novel....[A] virtuosic, wildly original book -- one that cements Lee's status as one of the most exciting writers working today." Refinery29
Synopsis
"A manifesto to happiness--the one found when you stop running from who you are." -New York Times Book Review "An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements--and this is a book that moves...My Year Abroad is a wild ride--a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia." - Vogue
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented prot g , and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion--on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
Synopsis
"Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee today?" -- Los Angeles Times
"One of our most silken storytellers." --The Boston Globe
"An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements--and this is a book that moves...My Year Abroad is a wild ride--a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia." - Vogue From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented prot g , and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion--on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
About the Author
Chang-rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, as well as On Such a Full Sea, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered, winner of the Dayton Peace Prize and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Chang-rae Lee teaches writing at Stanford University.
Chang-rae Lee on PowellsBooks.Blog
Upon first read, award-winning author Chang-rae Lee’s latest novel,
My Year Abroad, is a surreal picaresque that revels in Lee’s facility for humor and pyrotechnic prose. Pulling its young hero, Tiller, from the comic banality of suburban America into an intoxicating, if terrifying, journey through the casinos, brothels, karaoke clubs, and luxury mansions of Asia...
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