How to Write an Autobiographical Nove..., Alexander  Chee
How to Write an Autobiographical Nove..., Alexander  Chee
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How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
Essays

Author: Alexander Chee

Narrator: Daniel K. Isaac

Unabridged: 8 hr 29 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/04/2018


Synopsis

An essay collection exploring his education as a man, writer, and activist—and how we form our identities in life and in artAs 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 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, his first collection of nonfiction, he is 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-wailing 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.

About Alexander Chee

Alexander Chee is the bestselling author of the novels The Queen of the Night and Edinburgh. 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. His work has appeared in The Best American Essays 2016, the New York Times Magazine, Slate, Guernica, and Tin House, among others. He is an associate professor of English at Dartmouth College.

About Daniel K. Isaac

Daniel K. Isaac was born on December 5, 1988 in Fullerton, California. He is an actor and writer, known for Billions, Money Monster, and Too Big to Fail.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Roxane on December 31, 2018

Nuanced, sophisticated, intelligent, intimate, sincere essays about writing, identity, and being alive.......more

Goodreads review by Justin on June 27, 2019

Lest there be any confusion, this is not a book on how to write an autobiographical novel. It is, however, an excellent example of how to write a collection of essays. The book's title comes from a very short essay (5 pages or so) where Chee recounts the challenges of writing a novel that drew heavi......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on June 22, 2018

A vulnerable and moving essay collection that kept me up well past midnight thinking about writing, writing, writing. A successful novelist, Alexander Chee shares his personal life in these essays about growing up as both Korean and white, about his work as an activist in the queer community, about......more

Goodreads review by David on January 27, 2022

This is a nice collection of essays from Alexander Chee. Most of the entries are personal essays, providing a glimpse of the author at different points in his life. The prose sparkles and Chee’s life has certainly been interesting - from his involvement in ACT UP and Queer Nation during the AIDS cri......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on January 25, 2018

I do not read many books of essays even though I read a lot of essays online. There's a big difference between reading one personal essay and reading over a dozen by the same person, there are not many writers I trust that much. But I do trust Alexander Chee that much and my trust yielded significan......more


Quotes

“A knowing and luminous self-portrait.” O, The Oprah Magazine

“Chee’s insights about writing, love, and activism are hard won, honest, and incredibly wise.” The Guardian (London)

“Meditates on how art shapes who we are, unpacking its author’s own coming-of-age as a gay Korean man to craft persuasive, engrossing arguments.” Entertainment Weekly

“Chee is able to write about himself and, by extension, about all of us.” Esquire

“Chee has written a moving and personal tribute to impermanence, a wise and transgressive meditation on a life lived both because of and in spite of America, a place where, he writes, you are allowed to speak the truth as long as nothing changes.” New York Times Book Review

“He beckons readers to experience his private moments with such clarity and honesty that we’re immediately brought into his consciousness.” Washington Post

“Every essay, no matter the subject, exhibits warmth, rigor, tact.” Boston Globe

“An absolute gift of a book for writers everywhere. Every single essay is a pearl.” Chicago Review of Books

“Chee’s writing has a mesmerizing quality; his sentences are rife with profound truths without lapsing into the didactic.” NPR

“His essays are an invitation not to review the rules of writing but to trace a unique pathway into knowledge and being in and through writing.” Los Angeles Review of Books


Awards

  • BookRiot Pick
  • Entertainment Weekly Best Book
  • Chicago Review of Books Pick
  • Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year
  • Wired Magazine Pick
  • Esquire pick
  • Christian Science Monitor selection
  • Bustle Pick
  • Bitch magazine pick
  • PopSugar Pick
  • Paste Magazine Pick
  • Publishers Weekly Best Book
  • Time Magazine Best Book
  • Library Journal Best Books of the Year
  • Vulture.com Pick
  • them selection
  • Lambda Literary Award
  • Randy Shilts Award
  • PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
  • Los Angeles Review of Books Pick
  • Voice Arts Award