How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays

Written by:
Alexander Chee
Narrated by:
Daniel K. Isaac

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
4
Narrator
1
Release Date
December 4, 2018
Duration
8 hours 30 minutes
Summary
An essay collection exploring his education as a man, writer, and activist—and how we form our identities in life and in art

As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as “masterful” by Roxane Gay, “incendiary” by the New York Times, and “brilliant” by the Washington Post. With How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, his first collection of nonfiction, he is sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well.

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-wailing for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump.

By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.
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Dahlia F.

This book is spectacular. I loved it so much that after I finished listening, I went to buy it in the bookstore so I could include it on my bookshelf. When I asked where to find it, I was directed to the “classics” section. Indeed, this book is a modern day classic.

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