The Chang-Rae Lee publicity machine is churning away - the latest is this paean from the Seattle Post Intelligencer. (Is there a worse newspaper name in this country? I doubt it.)
The literary ascent continues for Chang-rae Lee.Each of his novels increases the notice for this rising literary star, with more favorable reviews, more prominent media coverage, more fervent readers, more prestigious professorships, more lustrous awards. At 38, with his masterful third novel just released, Lee validates his inclusion in the New Yorker's 1999 list of the 20 best fiction writers in America under the age of 40, along with such luminaries as Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Edwidge Danticat and David Foster Wallace.
Yet beneath his well-scrubbed good looks, his unassuming nice-guy demeanor, his doting fatherhood with his two daughters, his close partnership with his architect wife and his penchant for great food and golf, beneath all this lurks the self-doubting soul of the artist who is acutely aware of the challenges of his work and the limitations of his talent. Three novels have not stilled those doubts, nor the start of his fourth.
What, Native Speaker and A Gesture LIfe weren't enough to validate him as one of the best writers under 40 already?
Posted by: Ron | March 19, 2004 at 07:54 AM
Lahiri and Foer had each only written one book before the New Yorker annointed them best writers under 40.
What's with the Chang-rae Lee backlash, people? I didn't get the memo.
Posted by: moorishgirl.com | March 19, 2004 at 08:10 AM
No backlash here; sorry if I gave that impression. It's more a reflection on the way book publicity works - for the next six weeks, we'll get dozens of the same story on the same author. It's more a reflection, I suppose, on how pro forma I feel linking to them, given that they all do say largely the same thing.
No knock on Lee meant by this blogger, tho'
Posted by: TEV | March 19, 2004 at 09:17 AM
None here, either--I was criticizing the article for inadvertently writing off his excellent earlier work. I've long thought Lee swell.
Posted by: Ron | March 19, 2004 at 10:37 AM
Cool.
Posted by: moorishgirl | March 19, 2004 at 10:53 AM