How to Write an Autobiographical Novel : : Essays

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"A Mariner Original."--Title page.
The curse -- The querent -- The writing life -- 1989 -- Girl -- After Peter -- My parade -- Mr. and Mrs. B -- 100 things about writing a novel -- The rosary -- Inheritance -- Impostor -- The autobiography of my novel -- The guardians -- How to write an autobiographical novel -- On becoming an American writer.
"From the author of The Queen of the Night, an essay collection exploring how we form our identities in life, in politics, and in art"-- Provided by publisher.
"...How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing--Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley--the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump."--Front flip cover.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Fiction Profile
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Incredible collection submitted by redwood on July 6, 2023, 8:03am This book collects 16 of Chee’s essays, most of them previously published, but all revised for this volume. The essays proceed roughly in chronological order from Chee’s teenage years to 2016, though there are a lot of flashbacks within them. He’s an exquisite writer who has had an interesting life, so each one of these essays delivered.

The essays address Chee contemplating his mixed-race appearance on a high school exchange program in Mexico; the art of Tarot; studying with Annie Dillard in college; ACT-UP activism and elegizing friends lost to AIDS; drag; his MFA program at Iowa; cater-waiting for the Buckleys; gardening; beloved apartments; teaching after Trump was elected, and more. This is, of course, an oversimplification, but gives a sense of the breadth of topics. The essays often went to surprising places. Sometimes, I’d get irritated with an action or posture Chee took, but in a testament to his skill, he always turned it into something essential and rewarding.

The overarching thread of the collection, as the title hints, is about the life of a writer and the writing process. Chee details feeling called to writing and some of his earliest introductions to what being a writer might entail. The meaning of being a writer finds its way into every single essay. In a few essays, Chee focuses on his writing process, especially of composing his debut novel, Edinburgh (which I read earlier this year). His revelations about how he arrived at the novel’s final form and what he discovered about himself, and his past, in the process, are gutting and illuminating. Other essays are more theoretical; “100 Things About Writing a Novel” and “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel” are poetic, associative, almost sublime pieces. While reading this book, I went from feeling like I was no longer a creative writer to feeling like I might be again.