I also liked the characters in the story. Though none of them were very likeable as people, they created an interesting dynamic when thrown together.
Some Things You May Like If You Like This Blog
Me on James Salter at The Paris Review Daily. Me on studying with Annie Dillard, learning to use an e-reader, and the racial unconscious of the United States as seen in our superhero comics.
A a copy of my first novel at your favorite retailer of choice.
Edinburgh is in print from the good people at Picador. Here are some reactions to it:
…Alexander Chee’s Edinburgh, fucking incredible son of a bitch...
— Junot Diaz, over at Austinist
Alexander Chee is the best new novelist I’ve seen in some time. Edinburgh is moody, dramatic—and pure.
— Edmund White
Edinburgh has the force of a dream and the heft of a life. And Alexander Chee is a brilliant new writer.
— Annie Dillard
Haunting… complex… sophisticated. [Chee] says volumes with just a few incendiary words.
— The New York Times Book Review
A coming-of-age novel in the grand Romantic tradition, where passions run high, Cupid stalks Psyche, and love shares the dance floor with death . . . A lovely, nuanced, never predictable portrait of a creative soul in the throes of becoming.
— The Washington Post Book World
Chee is a gifted, poetic writer who takes big risks…This novel marks the debut of a major talent whose career will bear watching.
— Publishers Weekly
A striking debut…A complex story told with skill and intensity, but also filled with moments when agony and extraordinary beauty somehow coexist.
— Kirkus Reviews
A complex, sophisticated, elegant investigation of trauma and desire - like a white hot flame.— Joyce Hackett, in the Guardian UK
A second novel will be out soon, but not really soon, as it is still being edited. When it appears, it will be called "The Queen of the Night" and say "Houghton Mifflin Harcourt" on the spine, plus my name. Details will appear here and also on alexanderchee.net.
How well said.
My favorite Nick Hornby novel is /How to Be Good/. None of its characters seem like people I’d like to be friends with. Yet, the story and their concerns unsettle and move me.
This complicates (in a good way) that impulse readers have to find characters “sympethetic,” which I believe you have written about before, Alex.
Sort of like an English department.
Seems about right to me. Which book?