Description

From the best-selling author of How To Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee's award-winning debut, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, is "Singularly beautiful and psychologically harrowing. One of the best American novels of this century." --Boston Globe

Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy but gifted Korean-American growing up in Maine whose powerful soprano voice wins him a place as section leader of the first sopranos in his local boys' choir. But on a retreat, Fee discovers how the director, Big Eric Gorendt, treats the boys he makes section leader. Fee is so ashamed that he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, his best friend, is in line to be next. The depraved director is eventually arrested, and Fee tries to move on. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself.

Years later, after he has carefully pieced a new life together, Fee takes a job at a private school near his hometown. There he meets a young student, Arden, who, to his shock, is the picture of Peter. Still coping with his complicity and recovering from years of self-destruction, Fee must confront the ghosts of his brutal past.

Told with "the force of a dream and the heft of a life" (Annie Dillard), this is a haunting, lyrically written debut novel that marked Chee "as a major talent whose career will bear watching" (Publisher's Weekly).