Description
Dispatches From the Cold by Leonard Chang
ISBN 978-0930773939
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.
Leonard Chang’s web page: http://www.LeonardChang.com
Reviews
“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…”
—Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 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.”
—Publishers Weekly, June 8, 1998
“Chang’s gift for unsentimental storytelling is indisputable . . .”
—Library Journal
“. . . Chang’s pacing hums. He possesses a master storyteller’s sense of timing and economy.”
—The San Francisco Bay Guardian
“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…”
—KoreAm Journal
“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.”
—A. Magazine
Awards
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.
Additional Information
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