How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

Alexander Chee secures his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation. This title is his exploration of 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 interconnected essays he constructs a self, growing from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckoning 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 America's history. By turns commanding, heartbreaking and wry, the text asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.