INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A New York Times Notable Book * Named a Best Book of the Year by
Vogue, TIME, and Marie Claire
"A manifesto to happiness--the one found when you stop running from who
you are." -New York Times Book Review
"An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence,
symphonic across its many movements--and this is a book that moves...My
Year Abroad is a wild ride--a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and
something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia." -
Vogue
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full
Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life
transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human
capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but
minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative
Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller
beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings
him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from
ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever
more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the
world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, "precise, elliptical prose" that Chang-rae Lee is
known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between
Tiller's outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange,
riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller
processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future.
Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes,
capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and
more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects
of cultural immersion--on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in
America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at
once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises
and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could
have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
