My Year Abroad: A Novel Audible Logo Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Chang-rae Lee (Author), Lawrence Kao (Narrator), Penguin Audio (Publisher)
3.9 out of 5 stars 574 ratings
See all formats and editions
Kindle
$15.99
Read with Our Free App
Audible Logo Audiobook
1 Credit
Hardcover
$31.00
15 New from $27.37
Paperback
$26.28
8 New from $26.28
Instant National Best Seller
A New York Times Notable Book * Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, TIME, and Marie Claire
“A manifesto to happiness - the one found when you stop running from who you are.” (New York Times Book Review)
“An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements - and this is a book that moves…My Year Abroad is a wild ride - a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia.” (Vogue)
From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure - and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection.
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself.
In the breathtaking, “precise, elliptical prose” that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller’s outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion - on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.
===
Top reviews from other countries
William Connors
4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, preposterous story
Reviewed in Germany on 4 June 2021
Verified Purchase
An amazing story, but rather preposterous. The main character has very slight Korean ancestry, and I would guess that Mr. Lee feels just as removed from his native Korea. In fact, the book deals more with Chinese in the US and China, and the only references to Korea are noodle dish and some Chinese-Koreans with thug-like looks. The main character Tiller, although while claiming mediocrity, is actually endowed with substantial skills whether using his two semesters of Mandarin, as a singer, and in bed with ladies. I suspect that his name has a meaning or maybe several: till the earth, to strive and cultivate or maybe he just has his hand in the till. His benefactor, Pong, which means an intimate friend in Cantonese slang, takes him on a strange journey that requires quite a stretch of the imagination. Not sure why he does this, although many details remain unwritten (e.g., how Tiller wound up where he did). Pong is your typical hard-working Asian immigrant with his rags-to-riches story and his “brilliant” parents with their downfall during the Cultural Revolution in China (a story that we have heard all too often and not sure why it is included). The book if full of erudite references, which sometimes seem like showing off Tiller’s (the author’s) intellectual acumen, but maybe they just make the book more interesting. There are words in Mandarin such as “feng” (crazy), but also ones in Cantonese such as “gweilo” for foreigner (but gwei is actually the word for devil, i.e., foreign devils). One man apparently speaks approx. 20 languages, including the five most important Chinese dialects and Finnish, which is the most difficult language in the world along with its related Hungarian. This and many other things in the book are not very realistic, but that’s not the point: it is all very entertaining.
Read less
Report abuse
Spring
1.0 out of 5 stars Obsolete
Reviewed in Germany on 9 March 2021
Verified Purchase
Boring, redundant. Does not even compare to "Native Speaker".
Report abuse
carilynp
4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, twisted, crazy, and a wonderful protagonist
Reviewed in the United States on 10 February 2021
Verified Purchase
I cracked this book wide open and could not stop laughing. Then some sinister stuff set in and I was a bit freaked out. While I had a strong urge to pull in the reins, I was simultaneously greedier for more.
20-year-old Tiller is stuck. In his small east coast college town having grown up motherless with a dad who is nice enough, but they are just two ships barely crossing in the daytime. We meet him in the Hong Kong airport on his way back from what is clearly some sort of random trip when he runs into a single mother and her son who are out of sorts and out of money. Destination New Jersey, all three of them, where they end up together.
Tiller and his new compatriots Val and Victor Jr. create the most unusual life together, which includes – a home in an off-grid suburb, perfect for the witness protection program which she happens to be in, little Veej (the kid’s nickname) is homeschooled, and they are sustained by a bottomless ATM card.
Things get weird. Like off the rails. There isn’t much background about Val, but we sure do go back in time about where Tiller has been, and it is like falling into a deep, slimy, dark cave that you want to shout at him to get the heck out of. It all starts with a man named Pong, a wealthy, charismatic Chinese entrepreneur who lures him into his world and machinations. Don’t even try to guess what transpires because unless you have met Chang-rae and had an intimate discussion with him about his book, there is no way you could begin to imagine. No spoilers here from me and I couldn’t attempt to explain it, even if I were on hallucinogens. Simply put gambling, karaoke, men’s clubs, fine dining and cheap eats, pain and pleasure. And lots of travel.
I love Tiller. He is funny and observant. He is kind and introspective and will break your heart because his was broken.
You will figure out that there are some deep similarities between the characters. Tiller’s mother was not in his life, he is drawn to a man whom he hopes will lead him in the right direction, more than college can, more than his own father seems to be able to. Val’s husband’s absence has changed the course of her life and as a result, made a profound impact on her son’s.
Tiller and Val both encountered trouble of no fault of their own. I don’t expect you to follow all of this. That’s why Chang-rae wrote the book and I didn’t.
MY YEAR ABROAD is no exchange program. It is like a trip to a carnival gone bad but with a chance for redemption with some interesting characters who don’t turn out to be what you expect at all. And they will keep you laughing. You just need to be able to stomach some twisted stuff. I have faith in you. I’m here for this book.
Read less
26 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Homer
1.0 out of 5 stars And they call this litarature?
Reviewed in the United States on 18 February 2021
Verified Purchase
This is not a novel at all. Instead, this is someone who is trying to show how totally cool he is by hitting every "cool" cultural reference they can. As long as the "author" can demonstrate how hip and with it he is, it doesn't really seem to matter what the story is. Don't waste your time.
And Stanford University thinks this guy is good enough to teach creative writing?!?
By the way: the Pulitzer Prize is nothing short of a popularity contest. It has nothing to do with writing quality, it has more to do with how much the various institutions have put into getting their candidate to win. Clearly, Stanford wasn't all that invested on getting him to win (which makes me have maybe the tiniest little respect for the place.)
Save your money. Buy a book that is worth reading.
12 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Matt M
2.0 out of 5 stars No real point or payoff to this one.
Reviewed in the United States on 10 March 2021
Verified Purchase
I don’t know what to say about this book other than it meanders. The first 100 pages make you think there is going to be a big reveal and you keep reading to see what that is. It never really happens though. The main character is abandoned by his mother at a young age and has a very superficial relationship with his father. When he meets Pong a seemingly successful Chinese American businessman who takes him under his wing and to China on a trip the protagonist is clearly searching for something more than an apprenticeship. He becomes very attached to Pong and looks up to him in many ways.
This is only one half of the story however. The other half is about the main characters time with his girlfriend whom for various reasons in in the witness protection program. He lives with her and her son. The deeper meaning of this part of the story is superficial at best. Honesty it was hard to take this story line seriously after a while. Without any spoilers I will say this: the writing is witty and interesting. However, there are times when the story is not believable and you simply end up questioning why you want to read to the end. I wound up finishing it but considered giving up.
I gave this two stars because of the quality of the writing not for the plot or the character development. Both of which are lacking. This is an easy but long book that I am not sure I can recommend you spend your valuable reading time on. I really wanted to like this. I really did. It just didn’t work for me.
Read less
11 people found this helpful
Report abuse
====
Jessica Woodbury
Jan 01, 2021Jessica Woodbury rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: authors-of-color, arc-provided-by-publisher
A modern update on the classic bildungsroman that is absolutely full of surprises. It is packed full of enough themes for a college lit course, but strongest among them are love, identity, race, and the old trope of East meets West.
When I say this is like a classic bildungsroman, I mean it quite literally. In the early chapters I had the impression I was reading something like David Copperfield or Jane Eyre. The way our narrator addresses us, the way he refers to the adventure he is about to undertake, it is all carefully crafted. And yet in the midst of that 19th century setup is a distinctly 21st century story, our hero, Tiller, is at the beginning a person of little consequence. He is a little below average in almost every way, he has hardly any distinguishing characteristics besides the fact that he is biracial (he is 1/8th Korean) but passing as white and that his mother left his family when he was young. The narration has that old school feel in part because the voice never really feels like a 20-year-old man, not even a little, even when the prose is dotted with slang or strange references, it feels like a 20-year-old the same way a Dickens story does.
Our story gets going when Tiller meets Pong, a Chinese immigrant and entrepreneur. Pong is one of those charismatic people who seems to know and be friends with everyone. He is the guy you call when you need almost anything. He is generous and happy to help his friends. And when he meets Tiller he sees something immediately. This is a surprise to Tiller, who doesn't see all that much in himself. But he hasn't yet realized the deep longing he has for a parental figure, for someone who is proud of him, that makes him entirely vulnerable to do anything Pong asks, including a business trip to Asia where things get... weird.
You know they will get weird because Tiller tells you so, as the chapters switch between his going back to tell his story and looking to where he has landed afterwards, as the semi-boyfriend and semi-stepfather to an older woman and her son. This is not a particularly normal story either, and it seems a strange place for a 20-year-old man who was supposed to be heading back to college. This story has its own unusual twists and turns, but is more rooted in Tiller's ever-growing connection to this quasi-family and his own reckoning with the loss of his mother and of Pong.
As Tiller travels, everyone sees something in him that he has never seen in himself. Everyone imbues him with their own confidence in his skills, which is terrifying and exhilarating for him. And how he sees himself begins to change. Especially as his time in Asia is not so much a trip abroad as it is a kind of homecoming, a way to discard the American-ness he has never been fully comfortable with and pick up a new identity.
This is a long book, and I cannot really capture here how strange it is, but I really enjoyed reading it. I was worried it was going to be too long or too difficult but it never was. It was completely readable, though I found the prose to be sometimes too much of a highwire act, it is certainly distinctive in its voice, and there is always something unfolding to dive into. I finished it quite quickly, actually.
There aren't an abundance of content warnings here but the most notable are the use of a kind of roofie, sexual assault (kind of, this one is a weird one but there is definitely a loss of bodily autonomy and a sexual element so this is the best fit), and attempted suicide. (less)
flag69 likes · Like · 4 comments · see review
Ari Levine
Feb 13, 2021Ari Levine rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: 2021, asian-american, kindle
2.5, rounded up. I enjoyed thinking about this reading experience after it was over, and found surprising, revelatory, hilarious, and disgusting moments in almost every chapter, but this is a bloated, sprawling, and spectacular mess.
This is a very loose picaresque novel about the various forms of pleasure (luxury shopping, thrills, sex, drugs, food, booze, wellness, yoga, tourism) that the global 1% are privileged to obsessively pursue under late capitalism, how these high-end modes of luxury consumption fill their gaping ontological/psychological voids, and how legions of global wage slaves grind themselves into oblivion while laboring to enable these pleasures.
Tiller, our first-person narrator, is a callow 20-year old college bro, passively drifting through the hoops of upper-middle-class achievement in Dunbar, a wealthy suburb suspiciously like Princeton, New Jersey. Seeking a father figure, he apprentices himself to Pong, a fantastically wealthy Chinese immigrant chemist/entrepreneur, who ensnares him into embarking upon a grotesque parody of a junior year abroad exploring East Asia's grungier megacities as an accomplice in an elaborate business deal/laughable multi-level marketing scam involving nutritionally-optimized Indonesian tropical-fruit juice. Tiller is one-eighth Chinese, with a smattering of college-level Mandarin, and is swept along on this bizarre journey with the whoa-dude enthusiasm of a first-time backpacker, or late-1980s Keanu Reeves.
Lee delivers episodes of an exhilaratingly perilous surfing trip in Oahu, royal pig-outs on robatayaki in Shenzhen, producing industrial quantities of Thai curry paste in a huge human-sized mortar and pestle, Daoist alchemy involving the mass-production of vats of mercury to ensure immortality, a yoga competition involving the world's most limber instructors, monumental tokes of primo THC, and kinky Stakhanovite sex with the daughter of a mysterious crime boss/real-estate mogul with the ridiculous pan-Asian name "Drum Kappagoda," who lives in a Bond-villain lair high in the hills of Guangdong.
This contemporary stoner David Copperfield was much more entertaining to recollect as I write this review than it was to actually read over about a week of evenings. Lee doesn't plausibly channel the voice of a Zoomer, and delivers some real clangers, like a cringeworthy Steve Buscemi "How do you do, fellow kids!" meme. Tiller's emotional bandwidth is so narrow, and his personal agency is so limited, that all of this forced weirdness feels numbingly monotonous by the novel's halfway point.
(Into the middle of the novel, Lee shoehorns one of the least convincing and most under-researched Cultural Revolution narratives I've ever read, in a misconceived attempt to endow Pong with some kind of psychological depth.)
For reasons we don't learn until the very end of the novel, this business deal has imploded most heinously, and Tiller flees back to the States to avoid processing any of these traumatic experiences. After meeting cute in the food court of Hong Kong International Airport, he follows a depressed 30-something woman named Val and her cloyingly precocious 8-year-old son Victor Jr. back to a post-industrial working-class suburb, somewhere in the tri-state area, that Lee ironically/wincingly names Stagno.
Lee awkwardly alternates episodes from Tiller's year abroad with more grounded observations of his life as a house-husband and homeschooling pseudo-parent in the 'burbs, where Val is living under federal witness protection, after testifying against her ex-husband's felony-level involvement with a Tashkentian crime syndicate. These nearly-eventless domestic chapters feel like they've been parachuted in from an entirely different novel, and Lee gets bogged down in prolix descriptions of Victor Jr. opening a pop-up supper club and cooking obscenely elaborate and Instagramable gourmet meals for the neighbors.
This exuberant, uncontrolled experiment in maximalism really doesn't play to Lee's strengths as a writer, as he demonstrated in Native Speaker and A Gesture Life: restraint, withholding, obliqueness, deliberate silences. (less)
flag60 likes · Like · 7 comments · see review
Faith
Mar 05, 2021Faith rated it liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: netgalley, audio, overdrive, reviewed
Tiller is a 20 year old living with Val, his 30 something, suicidal girlfriend, and her 8 year old son. Val is in the witness protection program. The son is an aspiring chef. Tiller is taken under the wing of Pong, a wealthy Chinese American entrepreneur. Pong takes Tiller on a business trip to Asia where Tiller encounters karaoke, yoga, prostitutes and beatings. He also becomes a sex toy. The book alternates between Tiller’s life with Val and his trip with Pong.
Unfortunately, this long book didn’t really grab me, although I was interested enough to read to the end. Maybe I just can’t relate to a 20 year old, or at least not to this particular 20 year old. I was so much more interested in Pong’s backstory and his current ventures. I’m sure the book will be very popular. It’s the sort of literary coming of age story that critics eat up, so it doesn’t need me to like it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. (less)
flag56 likes · Like · see review
Jenny Lawson
Jan 18, 2021Jenny Lawson rated it it was amazing
One hell of a ride. 4.5 stars.
flag39 likes · Like · comment · see review
Dianne
Mar 10, 2021Dianne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: best-of-2021
A very wild ride with amazing writing and vivid, memorable characters. The narrator makes this book sing.
That said, this one is going to be an acquired taste, like black licorice or gin martinis, and I think it’ll be a “love it” or “hate it” experience for readers. Count me firmly in the “love it” group. I feel a classic book hangover coming on.....the kind you get at the end of a novel when you just can’t bear to leave the characters behind.
Truly memorable.
flag38 likes · Like · 10 comments · see review
Traci Thomas
Jan 25, 2021Traci Thomas rated it liked it · review of another edition
Really strong writing but ultimately not my kind of book. There are some great vivid scenes that glue the book together, but in between i found myself losing interest. This is for sure for the fiction lovers out there. A little too much going on and certainly too long. I can appreciate the skill with which Lee writes but the story didn’t ever capture me until the end.
flag33 likes · Like · 6 comments · see review
Nadine in California
Feb 27, 2021Nadine in California rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Narrator Tiller Bardamon is a 20 year old who lives on the “poor side” of an exclusive New Jersey suburb clearly based on Princeton,“where Labradoodles outnumber the ethnics”. In fact, being ¼ Asian, he practically IS the local ethnic. In the fall he plans to go on a year abroad program and he does, but it's not the one offered by his college. Instead Tiller impulsively travels to Asia with a local, highly successful and charismatic Chinese businessman, and his experiences are wild in ways you can't imagine. Trust me, you can't. The book's title is a riot of an understatement, and typical of the book's style of humor.
Tiller is such an engaging character for me - internally insecure and needy, but outwardly modest, uncomplaining and hard-working. I felt the weight of Tiller's emotional pains, but his voice is so wry and self-deprecating it never seemed heavy ("I'm so sorry,” I said, unable to help but fluff the downy pillow of my self-pity.) Tiller narrates the story after he returns from Asia, but the chapters alternate between time frames – the before, during, and after of his trip – so it all feels present tense, and the pacing never flags.
I can see how some readers might think that Lee went a little over the top with Tiller's experiences in Asia (not as in gory, but just being a shade too fantastical), but for me he stayed just shy of the line. (view spoiler) But then, I can forgive easily in the face of such pitch-perfect and entertaining writing. I don't want to give the impression that this book is solely entertainment, though - it has an overlay of gentle melancholy I've seen in the other Lee books I've read, and it does look at profound questions, but never sinks into profundity. Still, it's the entertainment factor I keep coming back to, since I found delights on every page. Some were simple, trenchant observations of modern life, like “...taking a picture of a plate of food is by now an involuntary human response.” Others were just plain beautiful, like this description of eating a perfectly cooked omlette: ““...this fluffy, buttery masterpiece that was like gliding tongue-first into a cloud.”
Lee also conveys nuanced thought in a clear, visual language, as in this example on race:
“...I took an unconsciously intense gander at her, to pick through the genetic runes of her face, her hair, her body, and retroactively analyze whatever thing she'd said or done through this new spyglass. But this new spyglass is a trick, you actually have to peer through it the other way and back onto yourself to understand that it's all about you, and always has been, particularly if you're a semi-diasporic post-colonial indeterminate like me...”
Finally, a more extended example of just how entertaining Lee's writing can be, with this (single sentence!) description of scuba diving for the first time:
“The thing about scuba is that it looks so fun and easy on the cable shows, you imagine flippering through the blue perfection with a majesty that will reconnect you to a primordial yearning for the serene gill-based existence we once enjoyed and maybe should never have evolved out of, when the truth is that the first time you strap on the mask and stick the regulator in your mouth you feel like you've been transformed into a badly designed personal submarine that features poor visibility and a gag so you can't scream.”
(less)
flag27 likes · Like · 7 comments · see review
Michael Finocchiaro
Aug 16, 2021Michael Finocchiaro rated it liked it
Shelves: novels, _pulitzer-hopefuls-2022, american-21st-c, fiction, korean-american, cultural-revolution
[image error]
I had high hopes for this one after really enjoying his previous novels: Native Speaker, The Surrendered and On Such a Full Sea.
The novel starts off good - reminding me a lot of one of my favorite books of the 2010s The Goldfinch in a lot of ways (mother missing, replace Boris with Pong, crazy trip, etc), but at some point I got really bored after the karaoke scene where Tiller demonstrates a sort of (hard to believe) supernatural skill at karaoke with Pong and his business associates.
There is a technic used by the author switching back between the present of Tiller's life with Vicki and VeeJ and his voyages with Pong which is fine, but the moments he chose for the transitions did not always make sense to me. There was also a lot of 3rd level dropbacks to his life with his laid-back dad Clark. Perhaps this was the best way to tell his story, but it felt awkward and read somewhat painfully at points.
I think that the intrigue dropped off when Tiller described in nauseating details his partying with Pong and the crew as well as his sexual escapades with Constance, and that was really what put me off because, unlike scenes of debauchery in The Goldfinch, they were not really essential in understanding the characters in my opinion.
However, being the great writer that he is, there were some nice quotes:
One day it was gone and I hardly missed it, like what happens when a huge tree comes down after a storm; you think the bright new hole in the sky is never going to get filled, but then a few days later everything has somehow recalibrated and it's as if the tree never existed. (p. 60)
[there were] first-rank artists whose works might someday be national treasures, but against the surging of the Red Guards, who with stunning speed and conviction improvised a complete (if temporary) control wherever they went, they were no sturdier than anybody else, mere saplings in the path of an avalanche. It was a time, my father would tell me later, when one could feel very large and very small and when neither scale nor perspective held any meaning. (p. 123)
At our most ideal we are windows onto the wider realm. (p. 268)
so this kept it from a 2-star rating.
Another thing I noticed was that for this book he used the first person singular (as in Native Speaker) whereas for On Such a Full Sea he wrote in first person plural and third person for The Surrendered. I think that his best writing was in the third person to be honest.
In any case, I don't see this one winning the Pulitzer 2021. Hopefully, Lee's next novel will reach the peaks of the other three I read and appreciated far more. (less)
flag30 likes · Like · 1 comment · see review
Linda
Apr 03, 2021Linda rated it really liked it
Shelves: american-fiction, fiction
My Year Abroad is an unusual coming of age story. Tiller Bardaman, age 20, grew up in a suburb of Dunbar, New Jersey (an enclave that strongly resembles Princeton). He is a vulnerable youth of Asian- European ancestry. Tiller's father, Clark, raised him after his mother left when Tiller was very young.
At the book’s start, Tiller works as a caddy at a Dunbar Golf Club, earning money for a typical year of study abroad, when he meets Pong, a Chinese- American entrepreneur. Pong takes Tiller under his wing, wines and dines him, and convinces him to work for him, marketing Elixir, an Indonesian health- drink that he claims can cure most ailments. Pong brings Tiller with him to Asia to meet, party, and sell to the wealthy elite.
Pong’s back story is one of the most interesting segments of the book. His parents were members of China’s artistic elite, painters who taught at China’s most prestigious art Institute. His parents met their demise during the Cultural Revolution. Lee vividly describes how this trauma and his later experience demise as an immigrant to the US are crucial to understanding his character.
The book has two alternating storylines. Tiller describes his time in Asia, which is followed by his life in a working-class New Jersey town with his older girlfriend Val and her eight-year-old son, who are in witness- protection. Chang- Rae Lee is a skilled writer who makes all of these disparate elements mesh into a subtle engaging work of fiction. (less)
flag23 likes · Like · 4 comments · see review
Liz Hein
Feb 15, 2021Liz Hein rated it it was amazing
Five stars and I almost DNFed this book twice. If it wasn’t for a buddy read I would have, and this is now my favorite piece of fiction published in 2021 (so far).
This is a SLOW start, and that’s clearly very intentional. The story of Tiller’s life is slowly unveiled to us in two timelines. The first being his experience meeting a somewhat mystical and larger than life business man named Pong. Pong takes Tiller under his wing, igniting the “year abroad”. The other timeline is post year abroad where Tiller is living with his partner and her child from a previous marriage which necessitates them living in somewhat hiding. We jump back and forth between these two timelines, slowly, and I mean slowly, learning more about the characters backstories. But by the end, I was sitting there literally hugging the book and thinking about what is important in life and how very fleeting it is.
I already sort of knew this about my reading taste, but this book really solidified it: I am a sucker for a strong ending and My Year Abroad’s ending was perfect. I’m not exaggerating when I saw I was struggling and thought this was a 3 star read for beautiful writing for basically 400 pages. But Chang-Rae Lee knew exactly what he was doing.
I would recommend this to fans of Remains of the Day and slow character drive stories.
(less)
flag23 likes · Like · 5 comments · see review
Jessica Jeffers
Mar 18, 2021Jessica Jeffers rated it liked it
Shelves: authors-of-color, fiction
My Year Abroad is the kind of book that I think might be more well-written than the amount of enjoyment than I got from the story. It often comes across as a generic "Important Male Literary Novel" kind of book, even down to the gross descriptions of women's bodies, but I do think Change-Rae Lee was doing some interesting things with his structure and themes. (less)
flag19 likes · Like · comment · see review
Kasa Cotugno
Feb 15, 2021Kasa Cotugno rated it it was amazing
Shelves: culture-korean, loc-asia, subj-food-and-or-drink, author-visit, subj-music, genre-auto-fiction
Other readers have pointed out that Chang-rae Lee's My Year Abroad is a profound work, steeped in ideas, but also "a blast to read." Yes on all counts. It's long, very long, and dense, with two timelines playing out through the voice of Tiller, whose very name describes how he navigates through his experiences. In a recent interview Lee responded to the question of genre, whether this could be called picaresque or a bildungsroman, by saying that he didn't want it to be categorized as such. Lee went on to say a coming of age novel is usually a debut, but at age 55, he wanted his narrator's voice to be younger and naive, and thus made Tiller's voice shift between teen and young adult as he matures over the course of his experiences.
So in the backstory line we have Tiller meeting Pong, a highly successful local businessman of Chinese ancestry, who takes him on as a sort of intern, flying him business class to Asia, and the over-the-top experiences he encounters as they market a health drink to off-the-charts billionaires. In present day, Tiller lives with his lover and her son who are under federal witness protection in somewhere USA. In both storylines, the importance of food and the nostalgic power of music play heavily. Food, not just the taste and preparation, but its properties of of home, connection to the past. But interwoven here also is Pong's history, told by him in his distinctive voice, which is the core of the narrative. His family history particularly with respect to Mao's Cultural Revolution and the resultant effect on his life. How he built his business empire.
As I say in the beginning, there are a lot of pages in this book, but at no time did it feel labored. There's much humor, and descriptions of meals are mouthwatering. Highly recommended. (less)
flag16 likes · Like · comment · see review
Katja (Life and Other Disasters)
Jan 30, 2021Katja (Life and Other Disasters) rated it it was ok · review of another edition
*I was provided with an eARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!*
CW: parental abandonment, suicidal ideation, mental illness, forced labor, forced sexual intercourse, sex work
Let’s get it out of the way. Unfortunately, I was not the right reader for this book.
I had been very eager to pick up this novel, because of my own experiences abroad. Be it during my formative High School years or later on in life, every time I went to a different country for a longer period of time, I learned something about the world, about people and most importantly myself. No matter where I stayed, it changed me and taught me valuable lessons. I cherish those experiences and thought it would be a great connection to this story. But no matter how hard I tried, I constantly found myself losing interest.
Told between alternating timelines of now and the adventure that got Tiller to his present situation, I couldn’t always quite make the connection between the different scenarios. I felt that the story was disjointed and didn’t evoke the emotional effect I had hoped for. The journey abroad and its aftermath were so important, yet Tiller doesn’t even leave his country until about 40% into the book.
While everything Tiller describes has a purpose, it’s still hard to follow him as he finds value in situations you wish he had never gotten into. I don’t think anything ever goes smoothly when you set out for something potentially life-changing, but where he found himself along the way was among the worst that could happen. There are some clear themes around parenthood, taking action (which Tiller does very late in the book, mostly being an inactive protagonist who things happen to rather than someone who makes things happen – but that’s all part of the journey!) kinship and the privilege of certain opportunities. And yet, I still couldn’t always grasp the fondness for certain people and experiences I would have rather never thought of ever again, while Tiller had them on the highest of pedestals.
Ultimately, I think that this style of writing just wasn’t for me. I can see many literary fans rejoicing in the details, but I found myself drifting off mid-sentence as the descriptions became ever more elaborate and lengthy. In general, this book was just too long, offering pages of minute details of various foods and drinks or other things, just information on top of information, but not the connection to me as a reader I really sought. I am certain others will be able to appreciate Lee’s craftsmanship and skill more than I could.
Fazit: 2/5 stars! Unfortunately, My Year Abroad failed to capture me. (less)
flag13 likes · Like · 1 comment · see review
Camille
Jul 03, 2021Camille rated it did not like it
Shelves: asian
Oh my god, where do I even start?
For several years, I was not an avid reader. I spent most of my high school days toiling in extracurriculars and rigorous academics, only reading novels deeply enough to gather obscure details and quotes for book tests and essays. When I moved to New York for two months during my gap year, I needed, of course, a book to read as I romantically sat at a bench in Central Park every day (scrolling through Tik Tok is unfortunately not main character energy). I ambled through the Upper East Side, finding myself in a small bookstore, the book cover and description of My Year Abroad catching my eye.
I did not purchase it in that moment. And thank god that I didn’t.
Instead, I found other essay collections and novels to draw me back into the world of reading. When I had gotten through four or five novels that I enjoyed, I purchased My Year Abroad, feeling like I fulfilled the role of a Reader enough to thoroughly enjoy and appreciate this book.
I knew that Chang Rae Lee was an award-winning and important Asian American writer of our time, and that he was also a professor at Stanford, which I am attending in the fall. Reading My Year Abroad felt like a necessity — I would read it, appreciate the endlessly quotable prose, and end up beaming with pride at the end, feeling not only more worldly and cultured, but also ready with questions and praise for Lee in the fall when he was my writing professor.
The book certainly surprised me. In the first few chapters, I immediately realized that this was not going to be the cohesive, string of narration that the most recent novels I’d read had possessed. Instead, it was an amalgamation of seemingly unrelated and (perhaps overly and unrealistically) imaginative plot scenes.
In the very first chapter, we’re introduced to Tiller, a 20 year old white and 1/8 Asian (which is, for some reason, an repeated detail that is shallowly referenced throughout the book every time Tiller wants to feel less bland than he actually is) college-age kid. He lives a secret domestic life in Stagno, NJ with Val, a much older white mother, and her son, Victor Jr (VeeJ). One of the first scenes is Tiller noticing a black SUV, quickly changing his appearance to masquerade as a teenager. He answers some of the Man in the Black SUV’s questions, vaguely, so as to protect Val, who is part of the witness protection program.
The book alternates between Tiller’s adventure to China and his domestic life with Val, the former of which we are reminded has plot relevance in his domestic life (Tiller’s continuous reminders, “all of this I learned while abroad, of course, which I’ll get to later”), which ultimately doesn’t really. Both narratives seem detached from each other, the only running thread being Tiller himself.
When we begin to learn about how Tiller got to China, each scene is so excruciatingly laden with unnecessarily high-level vocabulary and details that it doesn’t feel convincing or real. Sure, I can *kind* of force myself to conceptualize why a 20 year old white kid would have a secret relationship with a 40 something year old mother. But when Lee begins to describe how Tiller gets to China, all reason is abandoned, seemingly. Tiller meets Pong, a Chinese entrepreneur, as a golf caddy, and is invited to have drinks with Pong and his investment group friends (for some odd, inane reason). Pong sees something in Tiller that causes him to take him under his wing? Pong invites Tiller to taste-test his yogurt flavors chemically concocted at his yogurt shop? Pong gives Tiller a tour of his mansion? Pong invites Tiller to China with him on a business venture to sell jamu juice????
I am all for the employment of a creative license, and I have great respect for authors who can use the experiences of their lives and the experiences of others’ lives to invent a great story of their own. But this just made no sense to me. What interest does a 50something year old Chinese immigrant man have in pampering a stranger 20 year old white golf caddy? This is an extremely important plot point, because it is the entire reason that Tiller ends up in China, which is the journey that is supposed to transform and enlighten him, as advertised by the description and title. But it lacks cohesion and sense, and is flimsy and implausible, making it seem like Lee just thought of the idea while sitting on the toilet and ran with it as the starter building blocks of his entire narrative.
From this point on, the scenes became increasingly weird, and difficult to imagine ever happening. Tiller is swept away to China (for free), and taken on luxurious adventures, scuba diving in an aquarium with investment partners (what the hell?) and being forced into a room to sleep with a Filipina-Indian prostitute. I get that these scenes are supposed to read as exciting and flashy, but they are confusing to say the least.
Back (“or in fact, forward”) in Stagno with Val, we see that Victor Jr. is slowly becoming a master chef, which soon attracts neighbors and Stagnoites to their home, where they hold generous free meals (made by none other than Victor Jr.) to strangers. In the Stagmo narrative, we slowly learn of Tiller’s backstory, whose mother left him at a young age, which has left him afflicted with an array of mommy issues, partially explaining his strange choice of partner and living situation. Val, we learn, is canonically suicidal, searching for a social life and purpose that will give her life more meaning than just hiding away in the suburbs of NJ. None of the present-day Stagno narrative feels even remotely important or related to the in-past Traveling to China narrative.
By the time I got to the middle of the book, I had already been reading for five days. I told myself that I would get 60 pages done every day, and felt aggrieved every time I’d end up with a headache at the end of my daily reading sessions. On the fifth day, I said To hell with it, and decided to knock the second half of the book out in a day. To aid my marathon, I signed up for a 30-day free trial Audible subscription and cranked the reading to 2x speed.
The second half of the book was somehow more redeemable, but only made more interesting because of Val’s two scarily-near-successful suicide attempts and our finding out that Pong’s business venture was a whole scam (again, both being unrelated). Tiller is left in China at Drum Kappagoda (Pong’s business partner)’s former-hotel-turned-mansion, where he is forced to work as a slave to Chillies, a Thailand-born ethnically-Chinese kitchen despot, making chili paste and being brutally beaten any time he asks for outside contact. Constance, Drum’s daughter, also takes a liking to Tiller, roofying him and using him as a sex toy. In the end, we are left with a classic Villain-reveals-all scene, in which Pong has been brutally beaten to a pulp for scamming Drum, and is weakly explaining the whole backstory to Tiller. Pong was sincere in his jamu juice business venture, but was also selling a poisonous mercury to Drum, slowly killing him.
Lee’s explanation that the entire thing was a con is somewhat gratifying, since it gives Some meaning to the otherwise absurd string of events that happened prior. However, it still left me feeling cheated, because I had spent days on this book that only ended up being somewhat pleasurable in the last 100 pages. Further, the explanation itself still leaves me with a huge, looming question: why was Tiller apart of this entire fiasco to begin with? Did Pong bring him to Drum’s home intentionally to have him become a chilli-paste-making-slave? Pong, in his final monologue, reassures Tiller that he took him on as an apprentice because he saw talent and potential in him. It makes sense why Pong fled the scene, so as to avoid being caught by Drum as a conman, but why not bring Tiller with him, given that he was talented enough to be his pupil? The whole thing, still, makes no damn sense.
In the final page of the book, we are left with this message: “Truth is, mastery is beyond someone like me. […] The rest of us, as capable as we are, as earnest, have enough burden simply becoming. We figure our way in halfway bounds, eternally not getting there. Yet we keep on. Eyes open, mouths wide. Ready.” I assume this is pointing to some larger idea about pouncing on opportunities that arise, open to the idea of being fundamentally altered by experiences, whether pleasant or not. However, the novel is so scatterbrained that this mantra barely holds any meaning. Tiller’s experience in China only ties back to his domestic life in Stagno in two ways, which feel lazy and gimmicky at best: first, when we finally find out that the “magic black credit card from Pong” that has been financially supporting Tiller, Val, and Victor Jr. the whole time was given to Tiller to continue the jamu juice venture before Pong died; second, when Val is about to kill herself with a curling iron and a bathtub, the Japanese folding knife that Pong bought for Tiller falls out of his pocket and cuts the curling iron wire. These aren’t even plot twists or “aha!” moments in any sense, just vague connections to objects that barely held any meaning even when Tiller received them in China.
After finishing the book, I thought that I would feel contented and satisfied, having at least understood Tiller’s and Pong’s motivations. But instead I was left mystified and bereft. These characters are random and unrelatable. Tiller is supposedly the age of a college sophomore, but does not talk or act like one. Pong is a quinquagenarian Chinese entrepreneur, but has strange and unexplained motivations and judgments (namely, choosing a random college kid as his business partner).
I wanted to like this book, I really did. After it came in the mail, I excitedly took a picture of the cover, texting my close friends that this Pulitzer Prize Finalist was going to be my next read. Even in the first half, when I was grudgingly forcing myself to reach a page goal per day, I told people that the writing was advanced but I’d probably end up feeling more worldly in fulfilled by the end. Unfortunately, this was not the case at all. I finished the book on a rainy Saturday afternoon, feeling aggrieved and wronged, furiously typing away at a Goodreads review. Imagine that you are at a high-end Michelin-star restaurant, and there is an expensive wine on the menu that is presented as refined and rich. It has been fermented for an entire year, and receives only the greatest laudation from wine critics across the world. Excitedly, you purchase the wine, knowing that it is of high quality. But you take a sip, and it just tastes bad.
That is how I feel about My Year Abroad. I cannot give it zero stars because I can recognize that the writing itself is incredibly precise and detailed. These scenes are accurate to a T, and one of the reasons they are so difficult to imagine is because Lee describes a very, very specific place and situation with each paragraph. I am knowledgeable enough to know that this requires an incredible amount of skill. Still, just because writing is advanced and critically-acclaimed, does not mean that it is enjoyable in the slightest. The characters are random and the situations are farfetched, in an attempt to be imaginative and inspiring, but ending up seeming like an R-rated Mad Libs instead. The plot itself, as I’ve duly noted, has several problems with it alone. I found myself constantly checking the page numbers every few pages to see how close I was to the end, numbers that you’re supposed to forget about if a book is really good. Thus, I shall bequeath My Year Abroad a glowing one star.
I will note that there was one (1) singular section of the book that I genuinely enjoyed reading, which was the one chapter in which Pong took on the POV and described his childhood. Perhaps it was because the tale of a young boy growing up as the son of professors during the Chinese Cultural Revolution was more convincing (which like, duh, it was an actual event in history) than whatever fucked-up mash that Lee was trying to present as a cohesive storyline. But Lee only took on Pong’s perspective for one chapter, throwing just a few bones of hope to my starving, agonized soul. Immediately after, we returned to the nonsense jumble of My Year Abroad’s actual plot.
I will end this review with a single quote from the book that I actually enjoyed.
“Perhaps this got me obsessing about eventualities, such as how our time together might end. It’s not like in a story. In stories, the endings are ones we can handle, even if they aren’t so happy, because they let you linger, they let you go on, sustaining you with morsels of wonder and hope. But when you have to say goodbye to the person you love — and it is a person, it’s not the same with an object or idea — bid that true and final goodbye, and I mean final final final, it’s the safest, most startling thing. Utter desolation. Okay. It’s when the goodbye is one-sided that trouble buds, maybe lowering eternal.”
Goodbye, My Year Abroad. May we never cross paths again.
P.S. - For a book titled My Year Abroad, it takes a remarkably long time before Tiller actually arrives in China (Chapter 12/27). Further, as aforementioned, the Stagno storyline has only superficial connections to Tiller's experience in China. I've considered changing my rating to two stars, but can't even bring myself to do that. (less)
flag12 likes · Like · 2 comments · see review
Rob Schmoldt
Mar 10, 2021Rob Schmoldt rated it it was amazing
Prose style is off the rating chart for me, one sentence and scene after the next.
The story itself is currently a timely pandemic distraction since most of us have not been going much of anywhere. I’d skip trying to model this particular trip abroad but not the story. Sip, savor and enjoy! Lee’s charismatic Tiller, Pong and supporting cast of characters will be hanging out in my head for awhile.
flag11 likes · Like · comment · see review
Diane Payne
Dec 10, 2020Diane Payne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Lee's novel about Tiller's year abroad may make college students regret their safe journeys while away from campus. Then again, our twenty-year-old Tiller, isn't a typical fellow, even though he is portrayed as your average student. After caddying for some rather wild entrepreneurs, Tiller is invited to go to Asia on a business trip, to help promote this miracle drink, because Tiller has such amazing taste buds. While in Asia, he also learns he can sing, do yoga, make love for incredibly long periods, and withstand a fair amount of pain, when the joyride ends and he is expected to make curry.
Returning home, he meets a woman in her thirties with her eight-year-old son, on their way to their new witness protection home, and he moves in with them, quickly becoming her lover, and more gradually the young boy's father.
If I were to read these two descriptions of the novel, I'm not sure I'd read the novel. Why his wild, zany novel works is because Lee has such amazing writing, and he provides some incredible insights and details, both humorous and sad, and even though we go from Asia to a nondescript town in Jersey, back and forth like a pinball game, what holds this novel together is the beautiful writing, the joyful truths, and the bleak realities. (less)
flag10 likes · Like · comment · see review
Matt
Feb 10, 2021Matt rated it it was ok
I don’t know what to say about this book other than it meanders. The first 100 pages make you think there is going to be a big reveal and you keep reading to see what that is. It never really happens though. The main character is abandoned by his mother at a young age and has a very superficial relationship with his father. When he meets Pong a seemingly successful Chinese American businessman who takes him under his wing and to China on a trip the protagonist is clearly searching for something more than an apprenticeship. He becomes very attached to Pong and looks up to him in many ways.
This is only one half of the story however. The other half is about the main characters time with his girlfriend whom for various reasons in in the witness protection program. He lives with her and her son. The deeper meaning of this part of the story is superficial at best. Honesty it was hard to take this story line seriously after a while. Without any spoilers I will say this: the writing is witty and interesting. However, there are times when the story is not believable and you simply end up questioning why you want to read to the end. I wound up finishing it but considered giving up.
I gave this two stars because of the quality of the writing not for the plot or the character development. Both of which are lacking. This is an easy but long book that I am not sure I can recommend you spend your valuable reading time on. I really wanted to like this. I really did. It just didn’t work for me. (less)
flag9 likes · Like · comment · see review
Candace
Nov 01, 2020Candace rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
In "My Year Abroad," Chang-Rae Lee shows he is a writer at the top of his game. This is a complicated novel, and all of it is immediate and true. it's also the best use of bookending I may ever have read. Isn't that device supposed to keep tension and build suspence about how point A got to point B? In "My Year," it will keep you guessing.
When we first meet Tiller, he's moving into a rented house in a hard-scrabble rust belt town with Val, a woman in her late 30s and her 8 year old son, whom he met in Hong Kong Airport. She is witness protection for turning her mobster husband in to the Feds, and now 21 year old Tiller has gone through Witsec with her and is joining her in exile.
Only a year before, Tiller was one of the less affluent of his affluent New Jersey suburb, which is why he was washing dishes and filling in as a caddy to help fund his junior year abroad. We never know what country he's going to, but it doesn't matter because he doesn't go there. He fills in caddying for a friend and meets an interesting group of wealthy investors, and one of them takes a shine to him. Pong Lu is a chemist but also owns businesses --mostly food related--all over the area. Pong has a quiet chrisma, a gentle, deliberate way of bringing special talents out in others. He invites Tiller to come with him on a week-long business trip to Asia. The trip is extended and strange things begin to happen. A lot of drugs and sex, strange smoothie conoctions, weird cultish behavior, but it is all okay and Tiller feels safe as long as Pong is there. And then, suddenly, Pong is not.
And there you have your bookends. Tiller's in the town they call Stagno with a strange woman and her "XL little boy." Why is he there? Why didn't he go home? Where's Pong?
This is a long book,, but I wished it were longer. The pages shoot by. The mysteries pile up. The sections of crazy rich partying in various parts of Asia went on too long, but were always reeled in by the presence of Pong and Tiller's unsuspected reactions. The part set in Drum's compound near Shenzen stretched patience, but never enough to put the book down. and say "I'm done."
"My Year Abroad" is a good novel for these times. Will we ever have answers? Does it matter?
Thanks to Riverhead books and Netgalley for the pleasure of reviewing this novel.
~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader (less)
flag8 likes · Like · comment · see review
No comments:
Post a Comment