Chang-Rae Lee

This first novel explores the experience of 'outsider' from both traditional and very specific points of view. The protagonist, John, is the son of Korean immigrants. While his father, who came from Korea with an engineering degree, was unable to practice in the U.S., he nevertheless provided well for his family in material ways, but was grimly and emotionally unresponsive to his son. John has had all the material advantages, and chooses (or is chosen for) a career as a sort of industrial show more spy, playing a role in each placement as he plays the role of American in the greater society. After an oddly disastrous assignment, he is reassigned to infiltrate the staff of a Korean American politician in Queens, N.Y., and has to confront his shifting identity, and that of others.

Complicating this, John and his non-Korean wife have lost a son to a freak accident, and their marriage is in trouble.

I found this novel totally fascinating, for its perspective on being the outsider, on being able to suss out the insider game, and on the cost of playing your life instead of living it authentically. Highly recommended. show less

This is an episodic novel that, as the title suggests, centers a college student's trip to Asia with his mentor, a charismatic, energetic immigrant entrepreneur named Pong. But that event is recounted late in the novel, one that first describes what happens to Tiller beforehand; his childhood in a quiet, well-heeled town being raised by his father after his mother leaves them. The book goes off on various tangents, the most interesting is the account of the life of Pong's parents in China, show more and the heart of the book is what happens to Tiller after his adventure, when he meets a single mother in the witness protection program and her unusual son and joins them in hiding out in a suburban tract home in Plano Stagno, Texas. The events advertised in the title are the oddest and least impactful moments in this novel.

The writing is excellent and Lee has created a wonderful, complex character in Tiller, a young man who combines insecurity with a sense of humor, a clear-eyed view of his place in the world, a sweet heart, and a willingness to adapt to new situations. And the structure of the novel, which feels random, pulls together at the end to explain something that was burning under the surface the whole time in such a low key way and was beautifully executed. There's humor here and heart and if the story edges towards Grand Guignol there towards the end, it recaptures its footing soon afterward. show less

During his year abroad, Tiller Bardmon gets a surprising but practical education in the extremes of entrepreneurship, decadence and corruption. Armed with a trusting nature and a need to belong, Tiller embarks on his sabbatical with the naïve belief that he will learn something important about life. Instead, he ends up falling prey to a consummate grifter with an eye for the long con. Hence Chang-Rae Lee’s novel can be read as an ambitious critique of global capitalist overconsumption and show more the people who cash in on it. Along the way, he folds in plenty of humor, gluttony and sex but never loses focus on family dynamics.

Lee’s strength seems to be setting scenes, both big and small. His narrative shifts between the present in a shabby American suburb Tiller calls “Stagno” to the recent past in the privileged N.J. college town of Dunbar and Tiller’s wide-eyed tour of Asia. Lee embellishes these larger settings with more granular ones that serve as fodder for biting satire. In America, these include a faux English steak house, a pretentious suburban mansion, and an eclectic array of upscale fusion restaurants (WTF Yo! frozen yogurt, Gnarly Gnoodle Soups, MadMad Maki). In Asia, Lee takes us from the casinos of Macau to karaoke bars and an upscale brothel in Shenzhen and ultimately to an isolated sprawling palatial estate on the Pearl River Delta.

Tiller, a minimally Asian and minimally motivated 20-year-old, narrates the story. He is open to being led by a couple of older and more experienced Asian adults. Val, an older woman with a needy son, is hiding from the mob in “Stagno.” Pong Lou is a scammer with the uncanny ability to groom pigeons. In this instance, the game involves introducing an Indonesian health drink known as jamu to the lucrative Asian market as a tonic with miraculous properties alleged to cure disease. The problem with this plan for Pong and, by association, Tiller is the unfortunate choice as their sponsor and pigeon. Drum Kappagoda is a ruthless Asian gangster with strange ideas about how to cure his cancer. He is surrounded by an eclectic cast of malevolent characters, including a manipulative daughter, a trapped ESL teacher and a sadistic chef. Obviously, nothing good will come from this.

Lee tells the story in a haphazard picaresque narrative that is anything but clear. It is filled with food imagery, sexual content and racial stereotypes that can be off putting as well as downright bizarre. The mood carries a strong sense of imminent danger that in the end actually materializes. It is easy to understand why Lee chose to make Tiller such an empty vessel since he offers the opportunity to educate the reader about racial issues as they exist in both Eastern and Western cultures. Yet it is hard to develop much empathy for such a protagonist. Clearly, Tiller’s choices and flaws come from a family dynamic that consisted of an absent mother and distant father. Both Val and Pong seem to be substitutes for a flawed family life. show less

Tiller was an unremarkable bougie college kid who expected little of himself or anyone else. Then, improbably, he gets swept up in a pan-Asian business adventure with a very strange cast of characters. What at first seems like a rather adolescent male fantasy grows progressively dark and disturbing. We learn the story of Tiller's "year abroad" in flashbacks from his current situation in a drab U.S. suburb where he has established himself in a surprisingly tender relationship with a show more brilliant, spectrum-y 8-year-old boy and his lovely, damaged mother. show less