A Gesture Life

The second novel from the critically acclaimed New York Times-bestselling author Chang-rae Lee.

His remarkable debut novel was called rapturous (The New York Times Book Review), revelatory (Vogue), and wholly innovative (Kirkus Reviews). It was the recipient of six major awards, including the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN award. Now Chang-rae Lee has written a powerful and beautifully crafted second novel that leaves no doubt about the extraordinary depth and range of his talent.

A Gesture Life is the story of a proper man, an upstanding citizen who has come to epitomize the decorous values of his New York suburban town. Courteous, honest, hardworking, and impenetrable, Franklin Hata, a Japanese man of Korean birth, is careful never to overstep his boundaries and to make his neighbors comfortable in his presence. Yet as his story unfolds, precipitated by the small events surrounding him, we see his life begin to unravel. Gradually we learn the mystery that has shaped the core of his being: his terrible, forbidden love for a young Korean Comfort Woman when he served as a medic in the Japanese army during World War II.

In A Gesture Life, Chang-rae Lee leads us with dazzling control through a taut, suspenseful story about love, family, and community--and the secrets we harbor. As in Native Speaker, he writes of the ways outsiders conform in order to survive and the price they pay for doing so. It is a haunting, breathtaking display of talent by an acclaimed young author.

Author: Chang-Rae Lee
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 10/01/2000
Pages: 384
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.67lbs
Size: 8.02h x 5.12w x 0.96d
ISBN: 9781573228282
Audience: Young Adult


Award: New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association Award - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 10/06/2000 pg. 78
New York Times 10/01/2000 pg. 28
New York Times 12/03/2000 pg. 109

About the Author
Chang-rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered, winner of the Dayton Peace Prize and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Selected by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best writers under forty, Chang-rae Lee teaches writing at Princeton University.