How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays

Describing this book to someone, I had said "you can tell that he is a really good person". His voice was so transparent, so lacking in artifice, & vulnerable in a way that felt both dignified & elementary. Stepping into an essay of Chee's feels like stepping into the water for a swim at the beach. It's simple, even banal. Then you keep swimming & realise bit by bit the sparkling water & how beautiful, deep & even terrifying it is. You thought you were stepping into the water without realising you were stepping into an ocean. That's what his essays felt like. The minute made magnificent.

I can't believe the things he has managed to make me care about. Reading his essay on tarot cards ended up making me have two tarot decks of my own. show more Reading his essay on his roses, so lovingly tended, I got intensely jealous of his discipline & googled how to grow plants. His essays documenting his activism during the thick of the AIDs crisis made me feel like I had to be fiercer with my own activism, so pure was this proof of his commitment. His essay confronting childhood sexual abuse had me putting down the book several times, lost in my own feelings & had me breathless by the end of it.

His essay on that perpetual question "what is the point of writing?" married to the question of "how many times did I think the world was going to end?" should be read in every creative writing & literature department. Then maybe they could finally be satisfied & stopped asking students for the answer. I had written an answer to this question myself, like some of my other coursemates. I had dug logically for an answer, so practical. But this one line by Chee answered everything in that question, & it says everything about him that this was what he thought of as part of the answer:

"The point is in the widow of Osip Mandelstam memorizing her husband's poetry while in the camps with him in the Soviet Union, determined that his poems make it to readers."

The point is love continued, devotion undead, the reminder of humanity in the face of systems so large it forgets something as precious as a human life. show less

This is gorgeous. I read this so slowly because every word mattered. Obviously this is not a how-to book in any traditional sense, though Chee shares a great deal about the writing process, and the power of word well wielded. He also shares words of wisdom learned from his lineup of mentors. Marilynne Robinson, Annie Dillard, Deborah Eisenberg ( what a bench!) But though this is not a how-to it is in fact primer on why to write and how to live. Not how to live to be well and happy and unscathed. Chee is very much not unscathed. But a writer needs to truly live in order to be able to impart anything of value, and Chee has lived. This is a personal and political coming of age story of a Gay Korean-American boy, touched by betrayal, the show more loss of a parent, wealth and poverty and wealth, and the end of wealth. He uses all of those things, and a boatload of very hard work, to write as he does. In the end Chee focuses less on the how and more on the why, and if you can answer the why you are pretty much invincible. I don't know what to say except this is SO GOOD. show less

Collection of essays that pertain to life, identity, and writing. Notwithstanding the title, this book is not a traditional “how to” book about writing. It is more about finding an authentic voice, and how the events in Chee’s life shaped him as a writer. He writes about significant experiences (such as his Korean American heritage, the death of his father when he was sixteen, his involvement in gay activism) and how these have influenced his development as an author. There are some beautiful and moving pieces here. I particularly appreciated his essays about tending a rose garden and how he used his own childhood trauma as the foundation for his first novel. Chee is a talented writer, and these essays were a pleasure to show more read.

“The story of your life, described, will not describe how you came to think about your life or yourself, nor describe any of what you learned. This is what fiction can do.” show less

Moving, insightful collection of essays about finding your identity and your voice as a writer. Chee is obviously passionate and knowledgeable in his craft, but it in his grappling with childhood traumas that arise through the writing process where the essays really shine. Would be a good collection for young aspiring writers to read.

A great collection of essays- thoughtful, personal, intimate. Though many pieces appeared individually elsewhere (with some expansions here), this collection pulls together a portrait of who Alexander Chee is, in several lenses of his life: as an activist, as a teacher, as a lover, as a mixed race American. I haven't read his fiction before, but now I feel I need to, especially after reading how he worked from experiences to create [b:Edinburgh|272433|Edinburgh|Alexander Chee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1438828929l/272433._SX50_.jpg|264139] ([b:The Queen of the Night|17912498|The Queen of the Night|Alexander show more Chee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1460425080l/17912498._SX50_.jpg|2923071] is on my to-reads, but probably got there because historical fiction/POC author, and isn't discussed as much except when he mentions trying to figure out the second novel after pouring so much of himself into his first). Beyond that, Chee's prose is beautiful- moving and aesthetically pleasing. show less

The unexpected how-to

I loved this book despite it not being what I expected and instead being what I needed. I enjoyed the essays weaving me through his life and his relationship with writing. As he told his story, I was dropped into my own historical moments reliving the good and the bad.

A beautifully written collection of essays about writing and so much more. "The Rosary," about the author's Brooklyn garden, was a particular favorite.