|
The Dissident
Nell Freudenberger
#UB8022
Paperback, 464 pages; 2007 (2006)
$14.95
 Members' Price: $12.71
I assure you that although on the surface, this might seem to be a story about politics and art and even death, it will touch on those topics in only the most superficial ways. As I've said, I am an expert in just one thing; and so this will be a story about counterfeiting, and also about the one thing you cannot counterfeit.
Skipping nimbly between two disparate settings—a politically charged artists' community in Beijing in the late 1990s, and a private girls' school in an affluent Los Angeles suburb in 2000-2001—this novel follows a pivotal period in the life of the "dissident," artist Yuan Zhao. After beginning a controversial career as a performance artist in China, Yuan Zhao comes to America on a year-long artist's residency. Neither he nor his host family could have guessed what truths they'd discover about themselves or each other. Nell Freudenberger's lucid insights about art, love, family, culture, and identity are elegantly couched in a captivating, witty, and delightfully surprising tale.
(CH)
|
