Book Description
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence
“A tour de force… One of contemporary American literature’s major chroniclers of manhood.” —The Atlantic
“[A] knockout… Lee reinvents himself with each book.” —The Boston Globe
“Moving… a classic bildungsroman.” —The New York Times Book Review
“He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself.” —Jhumpa Lahiri
A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.
Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away—then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
About the Author
Chang-rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, as well as My Year Abroad, On Such a Full Sea, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered, winner of the Dayton Peace Prize and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A 2021 winner of the Award of Merit for the Novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chang-rae Lee teaches writing at Stanford University.
Praise
Praise for A Tender Age
“A classic bildungsroman… The pathos of A Tender Age lies in… the malleability of the self, the rawness of experience and seemingly endless capacity to be wounded.” —The New York Times
“What sets A Tender Age apart is its layered narration, in which a reflective adult and resurrected child together lead the reader onward as Lee strings threats of violence through the text, building thrillerlike tension… a tour-de-force.” —The Atlantic
“It would be tempting to describe A Tender Age as a tender-hearted coming-of-age tale… but there’s more going on beneath its dappled surfaces… A Tender Age expands beyond its frame, evoking the tug of memory, a philosophical novel ultimately less concerned with a pivotal moment in childhood and more with the accretion of regret and the sweep of aging itself.” —The Boston Globe
“Mr. Lee has wonderfully evoked the unmatched urgency of this period of childhood, when everything, from a footrace to a girl’s smile, feels like a matter of life and death.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Jeon-Gi, buffeted by forces and friendships outside his control, provokes a keen sense of sympathy that’s hard to forget.” —New York Magazine
“After Lee’s strikingly different novels about spies, veterans, suburbanites, war orphans, and dystopian wanderers, A Tender Age is another reminder that he’s one of the most insightful and wide-ranging authors in the country.” —Ron Charles
“An affecting exploration of the indelible stamp of childhood.” —People
“A Tender Age is a work of subtle brilliance… Chang-rae Lee perfectly captures the nexus between childhood and adolescence, evoking both the acute innocence and distress of growing up in America.” —International Examiner
“Nuanced and dramatically rich, presenting a frighteningly accurate depiction of adolescence that offers no easy answers…another powerful work about identity formation and the American experience from one of America’s best authors.” —BookPage (STARRED REVIEW)
“Lee tracks his young protagonist’s brutal education in the perversity of life…with breathtaking nuance and literary artistry…Each detail in each stunning and dramatic scene is vital and clarion… highly charged and resonant.” —Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)
“Lee’s striking latest…hits hard.” —Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
“A melancholy, emotionally rich story of preadolescent struggles.” —Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW)
Praise
“I have no choice but to ask: Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?” —The Los Angeles Times
“Nothing is rushed; nothing is overlooked… Lee understands that in art and in stories what is perhaps most valuable is not what can be explained but what can be felt.” –The Boston Globe
“The prose Chang-rae Lee writes is elliptical, riddling, poetic…beautifully made.” —The New Yorker
“[Chang-rae Lee] explores the fundamental human desires to be seen and to love.” —The Washington Post
“Lee’s writing style, as usual, is alive with wit and satiric social commentary… boisterous and fun.” —NPR, Fresh Air
