How to write an autobiographical novel : essays

Title:

Author:

Summary:

" How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing--Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley--the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump."-- Front flip cover.

General Note:

"A Mariner Original."

Contents:

The curse -- The querent -- The writing life -- 1989 -- Girl -- After Peter -- My parade -- Mr. and Mrs. B -- 100 things about writing a novel -- The rosary -- Inheritance -- Impostor -- The autobiography of my novel -- The guardians -- How to write an autobiographical novel -- On becoming an American writer.

Physical Description:

280 pages ; 21 cm

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Essays.

Personal Subject:

Chee, Alexander.

Subject Term:

Authors, American -- 21st century -- Biography.

Autobiography -- Korean American authors.

Gay men -- Biography.

Authorship.

Publisher:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,

Publication Date:

2018

ISBN:

9781328764522

Publication Information:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2018]

Call Number:

814 CHEE

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003362392	Adult Nonfiction	814 CHEE	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

Named a Best Book of 2018 by New York Magazine, the Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, NPR , and Time , among many others, this essay collection from the author of The Queen of the Night explores how we form identities in life and in art.

As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as "masterful" by Roxane Gay, "incendiary" by the New York Times, and "brilliant" by the Washington Post . With his first collection of nonfiction, he's sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing -- Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley -- the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh , and the election of Donald Trump.

By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.

Named a Best Book by: Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library, Boston Globe, Paris Review, Mother Jones,The A.V. Club, Out Magazine, Book Riot, Electric Literature, PopSugar, The Rumpus, My Republica, Paste, Bitch, Library Journal, Flavorwire, Bustle, Christian Science Monitor, Shelf Awareness, Tor.com, Entertainment Cheat Sheet, Roads and Kingdoms, Chicago Public Library, Hyphen Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, The Coil, iBooks, and Washington Independent Review of Books

Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction * Recipient of the Lambda Literary Trustees' Award *

Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay * Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography

Author Notes

ALEXANDER CHEE is a novelist and essayist and an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic , an editor at large at The Virginia Quarterly Review , and a critic at large at The Los Angeles Times .

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

"To write is to sell a ticket to escape, not from the truth, but into it," short story writer and novelist Chee (The Queen of the Night) alerts readers here. In the 16 essays assembled, he reflects on a breadth of experiences that, collectively viewed, offer a portrait of the developing writer. In Chee's hands, varied subjects, however disparate they may seem, coalesce-a summer in Mexico as an exchange student, a stint as a Tarot-deck reader, a writing course with Annie Dillard, an AIDS march, performing in drag, meeting William F. Buckley on a catering job, tending a garden. Chee's aphoristic pieces "100 Things About Writing a Novel" and "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel" implicitly counter the notion of a direct memoir. "The memoir [is] a kind of mask too, but one that insists you are only one person," Chee asserts. Chee's collection is, at its core, about writing itself: about how writing happens and writers are formed. A duller, less evocative title along the lines of How I Became a Writer might have been more accurate, but that would have failed to convey Chee's marvelously oblique style as an essayist-his capacity to inform and educate readers while they're too enraptured to notice. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal Review

A former literary agent once told Chee (English & creative writing, Dartmouth Coll.; The Queen of the Night) that reviewers would have a hard time writing about his work. They weren't lying. It's not easy to sum up this collection of essays: the subjects range from boyhood summers, encounters with tarot, gardening, writing, seemingly innocuous themes that introduce memories of loss, struggle, activism, abuse, the list goes on. Chee considers the design of a rose garden with the same regard as his first cup of coffee in the aftermath of tragedy (because a rose is never just a rose and that cup of coffee is the only thing certain). Chee's writing has a storylike quality that reads like short fiction. The content is heavy but never hopeless-the work here isn't happy, yet it never leaves readers feeling broken. Each essay is compulsively engaging, despite the dark themes (or, perhaps, because of them). VERDICT This is a beautiful book-hard to sum up, sometimes hard to digest, but a delight to read. A must for anyone interested in the craft of writing, politics, LGBTQA+ rights, AIDS activism, family, tarot, even roses.-Gricel Dominguez, Florida International Univ. Lib., Miami © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The Curse	p. 1
The Querent	p. 17
The Writing Life	p. 41
1989	p. 55
Girl	p. 59
After Peter	p. 74
My Parade	p. 97
Mr. and Mrs. B	p. 120
100 Things About Writing a Novel	p. 135
The Rosary	p. 146
Inheritance	p. 172
Impostor	p. 190
The Autobiography of My Novel	p. 197
The Guardians	p. 221
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel	p. 244
On Becoming an American Writer	p. 251
Acknoledgments	p. 278

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents