What would you do if strange letters began appearing
in your mailbox? Read them? When the narrator of this novel opens misdirected
letters, he enters the world of Farrel Gordon who hates his new Korean American
boss and is on the verge of losing control of his hatred. As we watch the
narrator reconstruct the recent events in Gorden’s life, including an affair
with his boss’ wife and the wrenching consequences that follow, the paths of
these two disparate characters—letter writer and letter reader—converge
violently as each intrudes in the life of the other. This is a story that blurs
the distinction between the real and the imaginary, and negotiates the exterior
world and the interior workings of a vengeful mind.
Link up to Leonard Chang's web page: http://www.LeonardChang.com
Reviews
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 1998:
"Chang narrates his passionate, downbeat tale with naturalistic distance and
an authentic, even microscopic grasp of the boring, dead-end world Farrel inhabits...Chang
is an exceptionally talented writer..."
Publishers Weekly, June 8, 1998:
"In his provocative second novel, Chang deftly varies a formula used by
Hitchcock in REAR WINDOW: a man in a position of enforced idleness becomes obsessed with
the activities of a total stranger...In clean and vernacular-accurate prose, Chang
painstakingly evokes the working-class lives of both characters, as well as their ethnic
prejudices and misunderstandings. The deliberately slow pace of the narrative accentuates
the impact of the step-by-step account of Gorden's descent into murderous rage, building
to the narrator's disastrous intervention. In the end, the trajectory of both their lives
acquires an air of tragic inevitability."
Library Journal:
"Chang's gift for unsentimental storytelling is indisputable . . ."
The San Francisco Bay Guardian:
". . . Chang's pacing hums. He possesses a master storyteller's sense of
timing and economy."
KoreAm Journal
"With stark and spare prose that sets off handsomely the complex narrative
structure, Leonard Chang's brave new novel deftly showcases a compelling drama set against
the backdrop of a blue-collar New England... In this richly imaginative novel, what is
most refreshing is how very ordinary Chang's Korean characters are in the sense that their
character development is not confined to their ethnicity... They are fully realized, and
thus their entanglement with Farrel Gorden is all the more powerful and relevant. Truly,
Chang must be commended for daring to step outside the conventional themes that plague
popular Asian American literature...a powerful and complex novel..."
A. Magazine
"Gorden's maniacal rampage revolves around a fine axis of twisted emotions,
the irrationality of which only draws the reader in. Chang's second release is a
rich geometry that keeps your pulse from getting too sluggish."
The San Francisco Bay Guardian Outstanding Local
Discovery Award ("Goldie") Citation for Literature
"Attention to narrative craft and subtleties of community and character help
Chang's work stand out from higher-profile market clutter and glutter. Chang's novels are
remarkable for their ensemble play and the meticulousness with which volatile situations
are imagined. Dispatches from the Cold doesn't foreground race but weaves it
into a complex, larger narrative and social fabric. The result is a reality that's
recognizable but sorely missing in fiction."
Read more about this award here: http://www.sfbg.com/AandE/goldies98/chang.html
|
