Don Lee (1)Besprekingen

I wanted to be cynical about this book but I can't. I enjoyed the whole thing, even though the stories can feel a bit like a lit fic cliche where everyone is a bit of an asshole fucking things up and no one has a healthy relationship with anyone, and the stories can start to feel a little repetitive in their structure, but in the end if I'm engrossed in the story, feel sympathy and some connection with the characters despite how much of a mess they might be, and feel a sense of anticipation about the choices they might ultimately make, how much can I really complain? I may not usually care about the foibles of horny modern people all that much, but The Partition made me care more than I usually do, that's for sure.

While there is a running theme of living life as an Asian (Korean, specifically) in the Western world, it wasn't the strongest theme in the book for me. There's a lot of stories of the entertainment industry. Actors, directors, translators, chefs, and so on and so forth. There are a lot of questions about how we see ourselves and how other people see us, how we present ourselves and whether or not the creative risks we take work out or not. And there's a lot of life getting in the way of the best laid plans. I've always had a contentious relationship with Asian-Western lit. That is, I've enjoyed very little of it because it so often seems to focus on how being Asian in the west sucks, and how Asian families also suck, and I never could relate. I can't say I relate much to the people in this book either, but even though things are constantly going sideways in these stories, the tone remains one of optimism, of coming back from bad moments and finding meaning in a modern world that presents us with what can feel like impossible choices.

[The Partition] by [[Don Lee]]

I enjoyed the first 3/4 of this book, but the last section of three very long stories really dragged for me. They focused more on details of situations like the Vietnam War than on the lives of individuals. Characters were the driving force behind the earlier (and much better, IMO) stories. Lee's main characters are all Asian or mixed Asian people trying to navigate society. Whether a Hawaiian boy of mixed ethnicity, son of a CIA agent, trying to navigate Japanese society or a Korean adoptee working her way to the top of television journalism, all were unique and all illuminated the experiences of Asian-Americans in contemporary society. Were it not for the last quarter of the book, I would have rated it higher.

Don Lee's collection of short stories introduce the readers to characters who are making sense of the decisions they have had to make. A failed indie filmmaker who is tapped to make a stereotypical movie about Asian immigrants, a chef who comes back home to help her parents close their restaurant, an academic who is accused to taking too many liberties with a translation of a novel, a letterpress printer who finds out his girlfriend is having an affair, a TV reporter who manipulates people to move ahead, a former actor who grew up around the world because of his father's job as a CIA operative and whose acting career has been filled with typecasting and disappointments. That these characters are Americans of various Asian descent color their experiences. Lee allows these characters to exist in specific moments in their lives, but he also lets them look back with the benefit of hindsight, tinged with wistfulness and regret. From time to time the narrators give background info on aspects of Asian or Asian American cultures which can seem clunky, intrusive, and even didactic, but for readers who may not be familiar with them, the added nuance may be beneficial. Altogether, this collection is a meditation on growing older and remembering the hopefulness of youth but also its mistakes and consequences.

The Partition by Don Lee is another collection of short stories and the publisher actually sent me a hardcover copy, which I think is the first hardcover Early Reviewer book that I've received. The stories are all well written, blunt and descriptive. Not being of Asian descent, I'm sure that there are subtleties that I missed, but all of the stories explore the universal search for finding one's place in the world around you. I enjoyed all of the stories, especially the final three story series about the same character.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed "The Partition." I'd never read Don Lee before, and I like his style. Lee explores the Asian-American identity through characters from varied Asian backgrounds (both mixed and not), some the stereotypical model minority doctors, engineers, musicians and others not so much. Through stories taking place in different cities around the world, Lee's characters all search for something meaningful, looking for their true identity and rightful place in the world. Although some of the stories can be in-your-face direct and a little bit harsh, they are never bleak or jarring, and all of them have at least a little bit of heart in them, so nothing is truly black-and-white in its presentation.

This was a very enjoyable collection of short stories.

I received advanced uncorrected proofs of this book courtesy of LibraryThing Early Reviewers and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I am always a bit leery of literary fiction, which I tend to find tedious and dull, but I enjoyed this collection of short stories immensely. It is exactly what it says on the tin (or, at least, my copy of the tin): "an updated exploration of Asian American identity, this time with characters who are presumptive model minorities in the arts, academia, and media."

Identity is definitely the core motif, and the author explores every nook and cranny of the idea: everything from race and ethnicity to culture, stereotypes, sexual identity, public presentation, adoption, celebration vs suppression, fetishes. These six stories are all over the place, with different narrators, of different heritages (though with a heavy emphasis on Korean), at different places in their lives and dealing with different issues, both internal and external. I can't say I liked all of the protagonists, but each story was certainly thought provoking, opening my white eyes to invisible issues I have the privilege of not facing, at least not head-on.

My favorite stories are "Commis" - which explore the intersection of food, culture, time, and location, and the final, longer novelette, "Les hôtels d'Alain." This final work is a three-part story, where we follow the narrator, Alian Kweon, over the course of his life, from a 14-year-old adolescent CIA brat in Tokyo to a 59-year-old retired actor who runs an enterprise of boba tea in San Francisco. I liked Alian quite a bit, and found his story compelling, especially given recent conversations about when we, as adults, actually feel like adults, as opposed to children masquerading as adults. I think every has a bit of that imposter feeling when we all realize that everybody's winging it, with varying success, as we careen down the highway of life.

I really enjoyed this collection, and I felt some of the slings and arrows hitting close to home even without the baggage of being Othered by the world in general. Recommended even to those of us who shy away from literary fiction.

Just finished my advance copy of The Partition by Don Lee. It's short stories that explore Asian American identity. The reason I like them so much is because the characters are so flawed and real. I even sort of hated the main character in one of the stories. She was a piece of work, but I loved that the writing stirred those feelings in me.

It ends in a three-cycle story about an actor, which brought up a lot of the issues in the industry surrounding actors of color. In the very last one the actor wonders about his purpose in life which I found to be genuine and relatable.

Definitely recommend to those who enjoy short stories.

Most of these were good stories. It was especially interesting to read the ones about Asian men being dismissed by Asian women. Also, the title story was fascinating, and I would read a whole novel about it.

It wasn't my favorite read of the year, but I enjoyed it, and I will be reading Don Lee's other story collections.

This collection of short stories by Don Lee will wow you! The author has a wry sense of humor and gift for writing smashing dialog. He knows how to reveal the essence of his characters. In each of his stories the reader will experience the charm of an exceptionally crafted tale.

Lee's readers learn from his stories about Asian culture. Often his characters are attempting to culturally assimilate in challenging circumstances. Lee's characters are struggling and complaining as they finally triumph and find a comfortable place for themselves in a challenging society.

My favorite story in this book is the last one. I recommend all of Lee's books because his topics are so relevant, his writing so skillful and his his conclusions so spot on his readers will learn so much.

Won this book, an advanced copy - Author is new for me - the short stories (9) reflect the life of one Asian American identity who are model minorities - deals with relationships, identity problems, where/how accepted - well written - some humorous - different point of view - left with a better human understanding - Fast but enjoyable read.

What if the death of a friend allows you to ask was it all worth it?

The johnluiz review of this book is excellent, and pretty much summarizes my reaction to the novel. Except:

I'm a Macalester College grad, and this novel showed up while Googling some Mac detail for a note I was writing to caption a photograph. The first third of the book is an excellent portrait of Mac, and a delightful description of life in Dupre Hall. And Phil Sudo--a Mac grad, though that's not mentioned--makes an appearance in what I've got to call an Easter Egg.½

Don Lee's The Collective reminded me of reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie because of the tension and discussions of racial identity and social justice, though through the perspective of the Asian American characters.

I also recommend the audio book version, if you're looking for something to listen to. Jeremy Arthur does a great job of narrating.

Don Lee’s novels have always resonated with me and towards the end of his latest, I began to understand why. Lee is resolutely plebeian in his writing: he gives his characters, no matter how wealthy or learned, no place to hide from our judgments of them. The business of living is messy, he seems to say, though some might look like they have an easier time of it, it ain’t necessarily so.

Lee also isn’t snooty about genre: there is a touch of romance hidden within the complexities of the married lives he delivers in Lonesome. People aren’t settled, despite their legal status. The intensely personal and minutely calibrated nature of the characters, however, elevate his art above the ordinary. Reading his work is just fun.

One of the things that Lee does exceptionally well in all his books is give us an idea of what exactly people do in their jobs, and what makes each job an opportunity for creativity and excellence. While many authors might hint at hidden depths, say, in cleaning a celebrity’s suite in a five-star hotel or in laying wall-to-wall carpet in a decaying hovel, Lee takes the worker’s eye view and relishes in explanations of how it can be done elegantly. It’s interesting. Readers develop understandings and sympathies where before there were none. (The government should hire Lee to analyze labor equivalencies in the workplace. We would come out with a far flatter and more just wage structure than we have today.)

At heart, this novel is about the creative process and the winding path each person’s dreams take as their lives progress. Yadin was a musician ever since he can remember, writing songs, both lyrics and tunes, that people want to hear. He sang, too, but experienced such severe stage fright that it began to take a toll on his health. He had to quit touring, and his life narrowed to a pinpoint of casual work & sleep as he tried to cope with his illness. One day, chancing one day upon a few lines of spoken poetry, his capacity for song is awoken again.

Poetry and song: the parallels are many. Those readers who relish language will love Lee’s focus on the way words work to draw us in, to inspire and delight us. In addition, there is something terribly exciting and beautiful about capturing the process of creation. Moments of creative flow described on the page are exhilarating for what similarities they bear to one's own experience. We don’t tire reading of someone who has managed to cobble together something unique from scraps; conversely we yearn for more.

Yadin’s mind was busy with “a thread of melody noodling inside his head” as he lay carpet; he would stop to call his landline and leave a message of the tune so he wouldn’t forget. Later, a few words and phrases burbled up from his subconscious which he’d capture on a piece of masking tape with his Sharpie.

Life is complex, and Lee relishes that complexity, carefully unpicking the tangled threads that got us from happy days of infatuation to a limping marriage, paradoxically featuring both not enough sex and too many children. His characters are irredeemably flawed, all of them, though they are talented enough that others may look to them to lead the way. Their failures are heartbreaking, and are perhaps as much like us individually as any characters in any book.

If I have any criticism of this novel, it is Lee’s two strong female characters. Each is carefully drawn and multi-dimensional, Jeanette being Yadin’s long-time companion and the daughter of his boss. The slow reveal of her character’s history is fascinating in its surprises but one has the sense at the end that here is a woman struggling to free herself from a constricting web of her own making. I personally thought she was capable enough (at her age) to have made a more proactive choice than the one Lee chose for her. In the end, she was not an appealing partner for Yadin.

Mallory, the celebrity folksinger, is familiar to the extent that we feel we may have met her before—her type, certainly. Mallory wanted authenticity in her art and had to settle for less to get by, but she was always looking for that real experience again. She had most of what she needed most of the time, but she was aging out of the business of love songs. Lee may have made her harder, less sympathetic, and less vulnerable than strictly necessary. I bought it all until the end when I thought she would have (at her age) made a different choice.

This novel of sophisticated adult dilemmas gives us confused folks who make one choice as young adults and different choices in the fullness of years. Yadin was completely sure, in his later years, what he wanted. Lee did not tie his novel up neatly but showed us the messy lives of people making choices we don't like. If aspects of this novel had romance-genre undertones, the overtones were richer and deeper and far more complex.

Another GR reviewer made the terrific suggestion that this novel would make a great indie film, and he is completely right. In the hands of the right actors, this is a star-making vehicle. All that unrequited or misdirected love can play out as music.

An interview with Don Lee by Terry Hong on the Bookslut blog shows us how Lee agonizes over the publication process of novel-writing, a phenomenon which is examined more closely in this novel when Yadin writes a couple songs and then agonizes over their method of release. Paste Quarterly has an exclusive book trailer featuring an exclusive Will Johnson track of the title song.

A story about three Asian American artist friends (two Korean writers and a Taiwanese artist) who meet in college, later live together in Massachusetts and start an artist collective for asian-american artists (3AC). Interesting characters (the novel opens with one of them committing suicide and another of them narrating their entire friendship). A little bit crass in places for my tastes, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The story involves the relationship between Eric Cho, Jessica Tsai, and Joshua Yoon. Together they form an almost Three Musketeers like group of friends. Joshua, the manipulative and privileged adopted son of well-to-do American parents, ignites a fire of ambition in all of them to stand out, to be nonconformist, to stand up for their Asian identity. After college, they meet up again and form the 3AC, the Asian American Artists Collective. Their group grows and Joshua continues to fire up all the members to try to reach perfection in their pursuit of art and to do so with unapologetic adherence to their Asian identities. This begins to drive some away from the group, some who think there is room to create art that isn’t always focused on racial identity, and those who don’t believe they have to stick within their racial group in their relationships. Joshua, however, will not be outdone, and another act of his brings them all together again, but we are left to wonder if it was truly intentional.

This was an okay, sometimes-funny sometimes-whacky read though the violence was a bit gratuitous and cinematic. Might make a fun movie in fact. Yes, the characters are a bit stereotypical at times, but it kept me turning the pages to the end. Everything you have ever wanted to know about growing Brussels sprouts.

I enjoyed this much more than I expected. There was some graphic and uneeded sex but the different plots lines all wove together very effectively. I even enjoyed the '20 years on' ending, which can sometimes be terribly clunky. I don't know alot about Japan and I think I missed a certain amount of details but I also learned alot without being overally didactic. A good read.

Don Lee is a very talented writer and there is much to commend this book. I really liked his previous novel, Wrack and Ruin, maybe in part because I identified with the middle-aged men in that piece. Here his focus, for most of the book, is on young people in college and during the early days of their post-graduate lives. He portrays them with all the standard idealistic views and grandiose hopes people of that age have of taking the world by storm.

Eric Cho, a Korean American from California, is the focal character of the book. He's an aspiring writer who befriends 2 fellow Asian students at the mostly white Macalaster College in Minnesota. One, Joshua, is another aspiring writer, the other, Jessica, is an artist, rebelling against her parents' wishes that she become a doctor. There are a lot of good observations here about the desire to make a difference in the world and good examination of the issues of racial identity and whether or not an ethnic artist has an obligation to explore themes reflecting his identity or if he or she should be free to examine any topic they wish and assume the persona of any race. But after a very provocative opening, in which Eric, in his mid-thirties, reflects on Joshua's suicide at the same age, the middle of the novel bogged down a little bit for me for a couple reasons. First, all the standard set pieces about young writers - like the brutalities fellow writers inflict on one another in writers' workshops - have been done so many times before, it's difficult to make it fresh unless you do a scathingly satirical take on the whole writing/publishing business the way John McNally did in After the Workshop.

The other problem is that Lee's two main characters - Eric and the friend he admires so, Joshua - aren't all that likeable. Joshua is obnoxious, pedantic, selfish and manipulative. Even though he is far more talented, it's hard to understand why Eric would revere him. There is a section later in the book when Eric wonders if someone truly dedicated to their art, as Joshua was, has to sacrifice so much to focus their energies on their art that they become deficient in their relationships and interpersonal skills. And admittedly all of us probably have had some over-the-top annoying person in our lives whom we maintained a friendship with because they possessed some quality we looked up to. Clearly, Joshua has the boldness and sense of freedom to tell people off in ways that Eric would never dare to, but in almost every other way he makes Eric's life miserable, and it's hard to spend a lot of time in a novel with a character that obnoxious, unless he gets some sort of comeuppance, and Joshua's is only self-inflicted. It may be too strong to say Eric is unlikeable, too, but he is a bit of a wimp. He has to be pushed to the limit to stand up to Joshua, and for a good part of the novel he has, in her words, a "puppy dog" crush on Jessica. We spend a lot of time hearing - in albeit very sexy details - about Eric's relationships with 2 women. In the first, he becomes a clingy, needy jerk when she asks for some more space, and then kids himself into thinking, as Joshua suggested, that she was a typical white girl only interested in experimenting with dating an Asian guy for a while. At least his reaction is interesting because Lee shows how much of the prejudice Joshua and Eric see everywhere stems in good part from their inability to see their own flaws. After Eric graduates, we spend a significant amount of pages hearing about his relationship with a suicidal, depressed woman who is still mooning over her previous boyfriend. It's hard to understand why Eric continually insists he loves her, given how badly she treats him. But again, that might fall in the "been there, done that" department of foolish things we do in our youth. Despite what I considered to be the drawbacks of this section of the novel, Lee's talents still shine through. He has some very funny passages - one in which Joshua takes the podium at an AA meeting and does an incredibly funny, exaggerated riff on the hard-luck stories members often share. In another, as the group of Asian artists meets to form their collective, with dreams of enlightening the world on the Asian experience, they got bogged down in the task of creating a mission statement. All the ridiculous arguments people make as they debate the multiple connotations of every single word they might use will be hilariously familiar to anyone who has ever participated in that type of exercise.

For me, the novel really picked up and had some interesting meat to it in the final quarter, when Jessica gets caught in a big political and media maelstrom over a sexually graphic sculpture that will go on display in Cambridge city hall, in which she tries to make a statement about the stereotypes people have of Asians. A Cambridge councilman comes out in protest, claiming the public shouldn't be subjected to art that's nothing more than pornography. This episode is deliberately reminiscent of the stir Boston Councilman Dapper O'Neill created when he protested a Boston museum's exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe photography (the novel even makes a reference to that). It's a funny extended passage that hits all the right notes. At the close of the novel, as Eric adopts a middle-class lifestyle, there are also great observations about what it means to accept compromises and get on with one's life after realizing the limitations and your talent and the downsides of trying to be a starving artist. Living in crappy apartments and being unable to afford vacations doesn't look so appealing when you reach your 30s and still haven't had a story published or your work exhibited in any notable gallery. The strength of the final section redeemed the whole novel for me.

The more I read Don Lee, the more I like him. This rollicking novel revolves around two brothers, one seeking quiet and simplicity, one seeking fame and success. Lyndon, renouncing artistic stardom to farm Brussels sprouts, is strong-willed and love-lorn, battling developers who want to buy out his farm, battling his past and his feelings for his ex, battling the cavalcade of outsiders who have swept into his life and turned it upside down. Woody is an ill-fated over-achiever, a shmoozer, materialistic but unfulfilled, and the hilarious mishaps that befall him in this story turn out to be the best thing for him. Lee's prose is smart and finely-chiseled, the story fun and engaging, the characters unique. It's just the sort of contemporary American writing that I want to see more of.

This was my first exposure to Don Lee, and it made me an instant fan. There is a trove of insight and humor beneath this tale of aspiring young Asian-American authors. An effortless and highly rewarding read.

If you know Half Moon Bay, the story is fun because it all takes place in Rosarita, er, Half Moon Bay and gets the local vibe pretty accurately. The story itself, though, isn't totally engaging because several of the characters are either off-putting or straight out of central casting or just don't ring true to me. Also he interrupts the story from time to time for extensive lectures on the life cycle of the snowy plover or the artistic conflicts of a sculptor. Still, a lot of energy and fun in there.

This is the first Don Lee book I have read and it will not be my last. Lee captures the contemporary Asian American perspective and has written one of the best scenes about creating a mission statement that should be required reading for every MBA! I picked this book up out of a stack of seven, and was hooked from the beginning without realizing what it was really about. I have learned something about myself, and others, which I hope flatters the author as it should.

Lisa Countryman is abducted in Tokyo, possibly taken by someone in the Tokyo sex industry. When her sister reports her missing, people in the U.S. embassy don't seem bothered by her disappearance.

Tom Hurley is a bored diplomat. He disguises his own cultural background and seems more interested in his affair with the wife of a CIA officer.

The Japanese police officer assigned to help with the case is Kanzo Otto. He's a self conscious person who is also preoccupied. He's worried that there is too much noise near his appartment and he won't be able to sleep. He's also afraid of his landlord, who picks on him.

We follow Lisa's steps as she arrives in 'Tokyo. She seems to want to continue her thesis but when the promised teaching job falls through, she takes a job as a hostess in a gentlemen's club.

Lisa is half Japanese and half African American. Besides wanting to study bar girls as part of her thesis, she also is in search of her family history.

The novel seems more of a study of Lisa's attempts to fit in and deals with her mistakes with Japanese traditions and the view the Japanese men have toward women and in particular, with women of mixed race.