autobiographical essays book

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How To Write An Autobiographical Novel: Essays

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How To Write An Autobiographical Novel: Essays Kindle Edition

Print length 289 pages
Language English
Publisher Mariner Books
Publication date April 17, 2018
File size 12070 KB
Page Flip Enabled
Word Wise Enabled
Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Chee's insights about writing, love, and activism are hard won, honest, and incredibly wise.

Every essay, no matter the subject, exhibits warmth, rigor, tact...The mask conceals and it reveals; writing transfigures and it uncovers. That's the gift that writing has given Chee, and it's the gift that his wonderful new collection gives its readers.

A knowing and luminous self-portrait.

Chee's writing has a mesmerizing quality; his sentences are rife with profound truths without lapsing into the didactic.

He beckons readers to experience his private moments with such clarity and honesty that we're immediately brought into his consciousness. At the same time, he asks us to contemplate the largest questions about identity, sexuality, family, art and war.

Chee remains introspective and self-reflective without arrogance...Chee is able to write about himself and, by extension, about all of us.

His essays are an invitation not to review the rules of writing but to trace a unique pathway into knowledge and being in and through writing.

Alexander Chee is one of our most important writers and we should listen to every damn thing he has to say.

An absolute gift of a book for writers everywhere. Every single essay is a pearl.

The sixteen essays that knit together his profound and resonant collection are a nimble study in radical self-invention...The revelations that follow crackle with the same glowing, essential truths.

The collection is candid, recursive, and well matched to narrator Daniel K. Isaac's understated sincerity. From moments of wry humor to shattering honesty, Isaac carries listeners through with sophisticated equanimity, underscoring the sense of intimacy created by Chee's words.

Alexander Chee explores the realm of the real with extraordinarily beautiful essays. Being real here is an ambition, a haunting, an impossibility, and an illusion. What passes for real, his essays suggest, becomes real, just as life becomes art, and art, pursued this fully, becomes a life.

A searing examination of the costs of writing.

Chee has written a moving and personal tribute to impermanence, a wise and transgressive meditation on a life lived both because of and in spite of America, a place where, he writes, you are allowed to speak the truth as long as nothing changes.

Meditates on how art shapes who we are, unpacking its author's own coming-of-age as a gay Korean man to craft persuasive, engrossing arguments.

About the Author

Daniel K. Isaac was born on December 5, 1988 in Fullerton, California. He is an actor and writer, known for Billions , Money Monster , and Too Big to Fail .

Alexander Chee is the bestselling author of the novels The Queen of the Night and Edinburgh . He is a contributing editor at the New Republic , an editor-at-large at the Virginia Quarterly Review , and a critic-at-large at the Los Angeles Times . His work has appeared in The Best American Essays 2016 , the New York Times Magazine , Slate , Guernica , and Tin House , among others. He is an associate professor of English at Dartmouth College.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B073XC5MTY
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (April 17, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 17, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 12070 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 289 pages
#42 in Nonfiction Writing Reference
#95 in Fiction Writing Reference (Kindle Store)
#1,015 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)

About the author

Alexander chee.

ALEXANDER CHEE won a Whiting Award for his first novel, Edinburgh, and is a recipient of the NEA Fellowship in Fiction and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Ledig House, and Civitella Ranieri. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Slate, and NPR, among others, and he is a Contributing Editor at The New Republic. He lives in New York City.

Customer reviews

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Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

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Customers say

Customers find the essays in the book beautiful, moving, and satisfying. They also appreciate the wisdom, enchantment, and provocative cover quality.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the essays in the book beautiful, rich, and gorgeous. They say it's a poignant choice to read at the twentieth anniversary. Readers also mention the essays range from fun to heartbreaking, provocative, and inspiring. In addition, they say the book shows how novels work.

"...NOVEL dazzled me—with its honesty, wisdom, and flat out artistry for writing ...." Read more

"...It is really three books: 1. How to Write, a primer on what makes writing powerful , moving, evocative, urgent, and necessary...." Read more

"...I liked the memoir approach to offering, in general, subtle advice on writing . Not sure I’ll reread it as a guidebook but it was inspiring...." Read more

"...A beautifully moving collection of essays , Chee's nonfiction debut ranges from the front lines of AIDS activism in 1990s San Francisco to the search..." Read more

Customers find the book encouraging, wise, and helpful. They say it provides some of the most important and well-explained tidbits. Readers also mention the author's argument is convincing in favor of nurturing.

"...HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL dazzled me—with its honesty, wisdom , and flat out artistry for writing...." Read more

"...The lessons in this portion of the book are some of the most important and well-explained tidbits...." Read more

"...installment, "On Becoming an American Writer," is perhaps the most convincing argument I've read in favor of nurturing creativity in our..." Read more

"there is extraordinary wisdom , love, beauty in these essays...." Read more

Customers find the book enchanting, surprising, interesting, and magical. They also appreciate the author's great ability to create a sense of place.

"...Here Chee forgets himself and creates world that is enchanting and surprising ...." Read more

"...Chee's voice and prose are kind, curious , and above all steeped in the earned wisdom of the best creative nonfiction." Read more

"...These essays are clear and measured and, quite often, magical . Prepare to be dazzled." Read more

" Provocative , beautiful, inspiring essays!..." Read more

Customers find the cover nice, stunning, and evocative.

"...in and dropped the other book to focus on Chee’s essays- they are beautiful , thought provoking, eye opening, and reminded me exactly why I’ve always..." Read more

"Not about the content. Just about the quality. Cover is nice as it should be but pages are even hard to turn...." Read more

" Absolutely stunning and extremely evocative. I am very much looking forward to coming back to this book time and time again." Read more

"Provocative, beautiful , inspiring essays!..." Read more