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| Home and Far Away Chang-rae Lee's new novel plumbs the pain of a buried past |  |
..........Franklin Hata, the 72-year-old narrator of Chang-rae Lee's quietly affecting second novel, A Gesture Life (Riverhead Books), has achieved what some might call the quintessential American dream. In the ritzy New York suburb of Bedley Run, where he has lived for 30 years, he is affectionately known as "Doc" Hata, the affable owner of Sunny Medical Supply. A Japanese immigrant once living in penury, Hata (once Kurohata) now occupies a "realty dream come true," a splendidly restored Tudor revival complete with a stone swimming pool, crochet lawn, and formal gardens. Once made to feel "not unwelcome" in the leafy environs of this Cheeverish community, Hata has become "unofficially, its primary citizen, the living, breathing expression of what people here wanted--privacy and decorum and the quietude of hard-earned privilege."
But A Gesture Life reveals Hata's life to have been, like his home, "a lovely standing forgery." His highly visible successes have come at the price of a Faustian bargain with his past. As the novel opens, events have tickled Hata's sense of mortality, and made him wonder if the bargain was worth it. The store that once seemed an unshakable source of pride and respect has deteriorated under new ownership, its gleaming window displays grown dusty with neglect. Hata begins to "consider how quickly the memory of the store will fade away, once it reopens as something else...and how swiftly, too, the appellation of "Doc Hata" will dwindle and pass from the talk of the town."
Then Hata accidentally sets fire to his living room, nearly destroying his life's crowning achievement. While he recovers from smoke inhalation, the only person who comes to visit him is Liv Crawford, the high-energy realty agent bidding for the sale of his home. In the hospital Hata learns that his former love interest Mary Burns has recently died. There he also learns that his estranged daughter Sunny is back in the area.
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- The Love That Loves to Love Three debut collections of short stories question our terms of endearment (Aug 11, 1999)
- Left for Red William F. Buckley rehabilitates the image of Senator McCarthy; Tony Hiss defends his family name (Jul 7, 1999)
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About John Freeman
From the Archive
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- The Love That Loves to Love Three debut collections of short stories question our terms of endearment (Books - Aug 11, 1999)
- Julian Barnes: England, England (Scrawl Roundup - Jun 2, 1999)
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