Edinburgh

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year 

Winner of the James Michener/Copernicus Society Fellowship Prize 

Lambda Literary Foundation Editor’s Choice Award 

“[Chee] says volumes with just a few incendiary words.” —New York Times  

“Arresting . . . profound and poetic . . . Chee’s voice is worth listening to.” —San Francisco Chronicle 

“Alexander Chee gets my vote for the best new novelist I’ve read in some time. Edinburgh is moody, dramatic—and pure.” —Edmund White 

Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean American boy and a newly named section leader of the first sopranos in his local boys’ choir. But when Fee learns how the director treats his section leaders, he is so ashamed he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, his best friend, is in line to be next. When the director is arrested, Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. In the years that follow he slowly builds a new life, teaching near his hometown. There he meets a young student who is the picture of Peter and is forced to confront the past he believed was gone. Told with “the force of a dream and the heft of a life,”* Edinburgh marked Chee “as a major talent whose career will bear watching” (Publishers Weekly). 

“A coming-of-age tale in the grand Romantic tradition, where passions run high, Cupid stalks Psyche, and love shares the dance floor with death . . . A lovely, nuanced, never predictable portrait of a creative soul in the throes of becoming.” —Washington Post

“Haunting . . .complex . . . sophisticated . . . [Chee] says volumes with just a few incendiary words.” —New York Times 

“A coming-of-age novel in the grand Romantic tradition, where passions run high, Cupid stalks Psyche, and love shares the dance floor with death . . . A lovely, nuanced, never predictable portrait of a creative soul in the throes of becoming.” —Washington Post 

“Lyrical . . . arresting . . . compelling . . . Edinburgh is beautifully imagined and executed . . . Profound and poetic . . . Chee's is a voice worth listening to.” —San Francisco Chronicle 

“Edinburgh has the force of a dream and the heft of a life. And Alexander Chee is a brilliant new writer.” —Annie Dillard 

“Alexander Chee gets my vote for the best new novelist I've read in some time. Edinburgh is moody, dramatic—and pure.” —Edmund White 

“Few coming-of-age novels truly stir one's emotions or lead readers to consider the trauma of their own lives. Edinburgh does both.” —Newsday