Rating: 
Summary: A cautionary tale
Review: "Edinburgh" is a deeply moving novel about the damage inflicted by a child molester to the lives of his victims. It seemed to me to examine how actions have repercussions beyond the immediate - how the past is carried around within people, and how it can influence and compromise individual day-to-day moral behaviour. In those senses, although "Edinburgh" is no doubt a "gay novel", the themes Chee explores are also universal ones. The book is far better and more interesting than many other novels because of that breadth of vision.It would give the plot away too much to go into more detail, other than to say that the author's writing style is often a challenge to read: events are frequently referred to obliquely or alluded to rather than described directly. Once you get used to this, the emotional effect is created by a feeling of close proximity to events rather than by stark realistic descriptions of them. The overall feel this novel gave me was one of trying to understand human failure and the effects of such failure, and by doing so, to attempt to learn.
Rating:
Summary: A Survivor's Story
Review: 'Edinburgh,' is an exceptional debut novel by Alexander Chee that tells the story of a gay Korean-American youth, Aphias Zhe, nicknamed Fee, who survives sexual abuse by his choir director, Big Eric Gorendt. Fee grows up in Cape Elizabeth, 'a town still half full of farms' near Portland, Maine, as part of a multi-generational family. He is twelve when the story begins, and he auditions for the Pine State Boys Choir and is selected along with another boy, Peter, who becomes his best friend and first love. Fee's story is told on many levels: 'This is a fox story,' Fee says. 'Of how a fox can be a boy. And so it is also the story of a fire.' The reader learns of Peter's demise from the first sentence of the prologue: 'After he dies, missing Peter for me is like swimming in the cold spot of the lake: everyone else laughing in the warm water under too-close summer sun. This is the question that no one asks me.' From his Korean grandfather, whose six older sisters were taken away by the Japanese Imperial Army to become 'comfort women,' Fee hears the story of the shape-shifting fox-demon, whose imagery will reappear to him often over the years. Fire is a recurring theme in 'Edinburgh': it brings immolation, purification, and transcendence. The title, 'Edinburgh,' comes from the city in Scotland, and it's also a painted fresco on the library ceiling of Fee's part-time employer, Edward Speck, an Oxford-educated historian. Speck is an elderly bachelor who employs young men as his assistants; his mentoring of them is respectful and non-predatory, unlike that of the married Big Eric. One day, Speck shows Fee an old letter from Edinburgh that was found in the spire of a cathedral; it had been written by a man who was ravaged by the Black Plague. Much later, Fee builds a stone chapel on the private school campus where he teaches ceramics and coaches the swim team. These images reinforce the strong sense of transcendence that pervades Fee's story. The narrative is sometimes choppy, sometimes lyrical, but always true, for Mr. Chee has written this compelling story with sensitivity and grace. Fee was afraid to tell, and he didn't want anyone else to tell. He garnered information on pedophilia from library books and newspaper articles. At home, he says about his family, 'I can see, they think I am still here. They can't see that I have a secret as big as me. A secret that replaces me.' The secret comes out when another boy tells, and Big Eric is arrested, then incarcerated in prison, along with his wife. Their infant son, Edward, goes to foster care, and then to his grandparents' house to live. About halfway through 'Edinburgh,' the point of view shifts from Fee to Warden, as Edward now likes to be called as a teenager. Warden is a student at the same school where Fee works, and after Warden becomes infatuated with him, Fee confronts demons from the past. 'Edinburgh' is a coming-of-age story that shows how someone can survive childhood abuse and devastating loss to emerge strong and secure. Alexander Chee is a gifted new author who writes with imagination and courage.
Rating: 
Summary: touching argument, beautiful language
Review: A book I recommend to everybody for the language full of imaginary and poetry that does not weaken at all the core story of child abuse, but deepens the insight into the characters' feelings and what moves them.
Albeit the difficult story, a fluent reading, an up and down in emotions, a journey through a sensible boy's soul and life. I loved the Korean myth of the fox and learning about the bi-cultural aspects of Fee's life and thinking.
Beautiful metaphors and expressions that leave space to your own fantasy.
A promosing new star on the firmament of writers.
Rating:
Summary: An Ingeniously Conceived Modern Myth
Review: Alexander Chee's first novel is the tale of a demon fox who is finally captured. Aphias Zee or Fee is an American of Korean and Scottish descent. In early age Fee's grandfather tells him the tale of Lady Tammamo, a fox who fell in love and, after being ridiculed by the community after her husband's death, engulfed herself and her husband's body in flames. He believes himself to be a fox in the shape of a man. Greek mythology informs his destiny as well, subtly setting the stage upon which the events of his life play. Yet, above the decorous theatre is a profoundly human story of Fee's experience growing up in Maine and, along with eleven other boys, suffering sexual abuse at the hands of a Boys Chorus instructor named Big Eric. Sex and suicide surround Fee through his entire adolescence and teenage years. He learns somehow to survive with the elements of creation and death orbiting him constantly, but it is an empty sort of existence for him. Passion is expended on lovers he doesn't care for. The guilt of his former instructor attaches itself to him as he discovers quickly that he is a homosexual himself. His natural desire is tragically intertwined with the other's perversity. His first love, Peter, becomes for him a distorted mirror image of all he is not: blonde, straight and freed by death. Thus, he embarks on an endless struggle to merge with this image, to fall into it, be devoured and emerge cleansed by flame. Despite surviving (barely) through college, making close friends and finding a lover, Bridely, who he marries in a commitment ceremony, Fee is unable to escape from his past and the conception of his own destiny militated by his demon fox spirit. He is paired finally with a spectre from the past and the mirror image he longed to meld into. The first most striking quality of Chee's unique prose style is his use of metaphor. With a lyrical intensity, the world is shaped by Fee's subjective understand of what surrounds him. Like the best of Eudora Welty's stories, the author uses metaphor to beautifully invoke experience with hyper-intensive feeling. The most emotionally unsettling moments of the book are captured with startling imagery. These moments not only convey the essential elements of the story, but also distort the world in a way to disturb and inspire your conscious interpretation of it. The understanding of desire and love are wildly twisted to unsettle and force you to think of the nature of their meaning. You are pushed to re-evaluate your own experience: "Do you remember what it was like, to be young? You do. Was there any innocence? No. Things were exactly what they looked like. If anyone tries for innocence, it's the adult, moving forward, forgetting." The structure of the novel impresses the need for these contemplations all the more. The first person, present tense of the narration impresses a sense of immediacy relevant for the dramatization of the characters' consciousness. Noticeably, the quotation marks of speech are experimentally removed letting the words uttered float freely in the air along with the sensitive impressions of the characters' thoughts. Yet, Chee's impressive expansion of the novels form does not delineate from the impact of the tale told. Although it is anything but a light read, it is still a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable novel. This is anything but a common coming of age story. The book is packed with intense, fully realised characters each of whom radiate a need to have their own stories told. The primary setting of Maine, so often an idyllic stage in fiction, is depicted as a troubled landscape, both turbulent and beautiful. It is interesting the final scene takes place in Cape Elizabeth's Fort Williams, an army fort well stocked in WWII that never witnessed the battles it was prepared to face. Now it is a popular park. The ruins left may speak more for the characters they surround than the characters speak for themselves. Sparkling with impressive imagery and powerful wisdom, Edinburgh is an incredible artistic accomplishment and a powerful debut.
Rating: 
Summary: smooth start, rough finish
Review: Although the suicides, molestations, and nude adolescent romps at a camp lead by an adult choral director could be seen as extreme, the primary characters keep these devices in check by being well constructed, engaging, and firmly in control during the first part of the novel. Unfortunately, this is reversed in the last quarter. Here an increasingly bizarre and unrealistic plot is forced on the protagonists, who begin to behave in ways that appear contrived and false. Instead of raising my pulse, the jacked up action caused my interest in Fee and Warden to flag. At this point the writing also seemed to become less focused and more opaque. Some passages were almost incomprehensible to me--I suspected proof-reading deficiencies.
Finally, instead of confronting the "fox" and forcing Warden and Fee, in the end, to deal head on with themselves and their relationship, the author chooses abandonment. And that's the way I felt too, deserted.
As an aside, friends who read drafts of friends who write should not let them use "I" where "me" is correct.
Rating:
Summary: A Lambda Award winner for good reason.
Review: An emotionally devasting work of fiction. Alexander Chee is a writer of extravagant talents. Not since "The Hours" have I had to read through so many tears. His prose has a brilliant precision - he communicates a depth feeling - pain, loss, guilt -with an economy of words which is truly impressive. I'm not going to go into details about the subject matter or describe the many beautifully realized characters. I will conclude these remarks by simply saying that I intend to recommend this heartwrenching novel to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: A Lambda Award winner for good reason.
Review: An emotionally devasting work of fiction. Alexander Chee is a writer of extravagant talents. Not since "The Hours" have I had to read through so many tears. His prose has a brilliant precision - he communicates a depth feeling - pain, loss, guilt -with an economy of words which is truly impressive. I'm not going to go into details about the subject matter or describe the many beautifully realized characters. I will conclude these remarks by simply saying that I intend to recommend this heartwrenching novel to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: A Lambda Award winner for good reason.
Review: An emotionally devasting work of fiction. Alexander Chee is a writer of extravagant talents. Not since "The Hours" have I had to read through so many tears. His prose has a brilliant precision - he communicates a depth feeling - pain, loss, guilt -with an economy of words which is truly impressive. I'm not going to go into details about the subject matter or describe the many beautifully realized characters. I will conclude these remarks by simply saying that I intend to recommend this heartwrenching novel to everyone I know.
Rating:
Summary: Gifted New Author
Review: Chee has a refreshing new/modern style of writing which evokes his generation and his youth. He communicates feelings and angst like it has rarely been done before. His characters ring true and their view of life's challenges is heart rending. He plays the gay theme beautifully.
I thuroughly enjoyed this book and eagerly await his next work.
Boston/Jan 03
Rating:
Summary: Artfully written and hurriedly devoured
Review: Creeping toward the uncomfortable, Edinburgh exposes the taboo of pedophilia. This is a story of defeat, numbness, loss, love, revenge, and pinching reality. The events in the character's lives are stories we may have picked up along the way from friends or family, nothing too astonishing not to believe. A great book that makes you feel privileged to have read, like your now part of something larger.
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