ISBN 978-0930773-496 |
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ISBN 978-0930773-496 |
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A young man in New York begins opening and reading misdirected letters from a man
named Farrel Gorden in New Hampshire. Gorden, a working-class white man who violently
hates his new Korean American boss, is on the verge of losing control. As we watch the
young man, amidst his own crises, reconstruct Gorden's world, the paths of these two
disparate characters soon come crashing together explosively as the young man tries to
interfere with Gorden's life.
Link up to Leonard Chang's web page: http://www.LeonardChang.com
| What the Critics are Saying |
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
Leonard Chang
Leonard Chang's first novel, The Fruit 'N Food, won the Black Heron Press Award
for Social Fiction in 1996, and is now being taught at colleges around the country. His
second novel, Dispatches from the Cold, was published in 1998 and won a San Francisco Bay
Guardian Goldie Award for Literature. His third novel, Over the Shoulder, was published in
2001 by Ecco Press/HarperCollins. His short stories have appeared in numerous literary
journals, including The Crescent Review, Prairie Schooner, Confluence, and BambooRidge. He
currently teaches at the MFA Program at Antioch University,
Los Angeles. For more information visit www.leonardchang.com.