The Dissident

Fülszöveg

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE DISSIDENT
"The Dissident \s both entertaining and utterly surprising. Nell Freudenberger has created characters and situations of great emotional and historical depth. Add to that some elating flights of pure invention, most notably a convincing portrait of China's underground art scene, and you have a first novel that encompasses worlds." —SEAN WILSEY, AUTHOR OF OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL
"Nell Freudenberger is awesomely skilled at making characters, setting scenes, and launching an old-fashioned plot suited to the twenty-first century. These tremendous novelistic powers would justify some showing off, but Freudenberger never flaunts her gifts. She merely puts them to use. Such mature, self-effacing accomplishment is remarkable anywhere—but in a first novel? Try suspending that disbelief." —BENJAMIN KUNKEL, AUTHOR OF INDECISION
PRAISE FOR LUCKY GIRLS
"Gorgeously written a remarkably poised collection."
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Intricately... Tovább

Fülszöveg

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE DISSIDENT
"The Dissident \s both entertaining and utterly surprising. Nell Freudenberger has created characters and situations of great emotional and historical depth. Add to that some elating flights of pure invention, most notably a convincing portrait of China's underground art scene, and you have a first novel that encompasses worlds." —SEAN WILSEY, AUTHOR OF OH THE GLORY OF IT ALL
"Nell Freudenberger is awesomely skilled at making characters, setting scenes, and launching an old-fashioned plot suited to the twenty-first century. These tremendous novelistic powers would justify some showing off, but Freudenberger never flaunts her gifts. She merely puts them to use. Such mature, self-effacing accomplishment is remarkable anywhere—but in a first novel? Try suspending that disbelief." —BENJAMIN KUNKEL, AUTHOR OF INDECISION
PRAISE FOR LUCKY GIRLS
"Gorgeously written a remarkably poised collection."
—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Intricately constructed, emotionally affecting tales____Freudenberger establishes herself as a talent to watch for years to come." —ELLE
"The stories are remarkable for the clarity of their language, pace, and tone. Freudenberger is a storyteller who immediately wins a reader's trust and keeps it." —BOSTON BLOBE
"Freudenberger possesses a keen intelligence, a confident, unadorned style, a brilliant ability to vividly sketch a character through telling details and a deeply appealing narrative voice." —VILLAGE VOICE
"Every story in this remarkable collection reveals the emergence of a truly
prodigious talpnt^l----—RICHARD FORD
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FROM THE PEN/MALAMUD AWARD-WINNINC
AUTHOR OF LUCKY GIRLS COMES A BOLD, INTRICATELY WOVEN FIRST NOVEL ABOUT AN ENIGMATIC STRANGER WHO DISRUPTS THE LIFE OF ONE AMERICAN FAMILY.
Yuan Zhao, a celebrated Chinese performance artist and political dissident, has accepted a one year's artist's residency in Los Angeles. He is to be a Visiting Scholar at the St. Anselm's School for Girls, teaching advanced art, and hosted by one of the school's most devoted families: the wealthy if dysfunctional Traverses. But when their guest arrives, the Traverses are preoccupied with their own problems. Cece—devoted mother and contemporary art enthusiast—worries about the recent arrest of her son, Max. Unable to communicate with her husband, Gordon, a psychiatrist distracted by his passion for genealogical research, she turns to Gordon's wayward brother, Phil. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Olivia Travers is just relieved that her classmates seem to be ignoring the weird Chinese art teacher living in her pool house—at least until a brilliant but troublesome new student appears in his class.
The dissident, for his part, is delighted to be left alone. His relationship to the 1989 Democracy Movement and his past in a Beijing underground artists' community together give him reason for not wanting to be scrutinized too carefully. The trouble starts when he and his American hosts begin to see one another with clearer eyes.
A novel about secrets, love, and the shining chaos of everyday American life, The Dissident is a remarkable and surprising group portrait, done with a light, sure hand. Reviewing Lucky Girls, the Seattle Times praised Freudenberger's "merciless and often hilarious eye for family dynamics, and her equally sharp eye for cultures in collision." These talents
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and others are on full display here, as the author captures her characters in their struggles with art, with identity—and with one another. As the New York Times Book ffeweiv observed, "Young writers as ambitious—and as good—as Nell Freudenberger give us a reason for hope."

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NELL FREUDENBERGER'S collection of stories, Lucky Girls, was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2005 Freudenberger was the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. She lives in New York City.
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