*STARRED REVIEW Familiar joy is immediate as one reenters Don Lee’s signature worlds of brilliant resonance and quiet depth. In his first short story collection since his lauded Yellow debut, Lee again questions identity, unlikely relationships, and fleeting connections. “Truth was a collection of falsehoods,” Lee’s filmmaker...
Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens “Everyone, it seems, is telling our story but us,” observes Lisa Pearl, the Korean-born, Bethesda, Maryland-raised transracial adoptee protagonist in Alice Stephens’ recent October debut. The author, who describes herself as being “among the first generation of transnational, interracial adoptees,”...
While texting with a (much younger) Korean American friend the other day about meeting at the movies, I gave her two choices: CRA or Searching. I was all giddy on my end, thinking how phenomenally lucky we were to have TWO APA choices, but my...
Now-adult adoptees who arrived in the United States from other countries are learning that their U.S. citizenship can’t be assumed. Two recent tragedies have highlighted the shocking realization: the May 2017 suicide of Phillip Clay, adopted at eight by a Philadelphia family and deported to Seoul 29...
Q&A with Don Lee: False starts, being radical & letting go of the small stuff More than four years have passed since I chatted with Don Lee for Bloom. The paperback version of his 2012 novel, The Collective, was about to come out. We were talking...
“Nope! I’ve never had any aspirations to be a musician”: Don Lee talks LONESOME LIES BEFORE US When Don Lee’s first book came out 16 years ago, he probably didn’t know then that more than half his writing career would be spent in Rosarita Bay, a fictional...
While Columbus is credited with discovering the Americas, notable scholars and historians have argued that Chinese explorers traveled around the world in the early 15th century and created a surviving map that shows America on its route. Imagine if those ancient explorers had stayed. The history of Asians...
With his eyes and body still “bleary from post-windsurfing and traveling,” Don Lee nonetheless graciously agrees to be grilled yet again – we’re going on a decade-plus of various interviews through four books! He’s tired, he’s rambling, but he’s always entertaining … and once more...
When Don Lee’s first book debuted in April 2001, he probably didn’t know that he was the forerunner of a colorful trend – literally. His collection, Yellow, had the shortest of subtitles, simply Stories. Three months later, in July, another yellow-tinted cover appeared: Yell-Oh Girls!: Emerging...
Don Lee is definitely a good news-bad news sort of guy, albeit all in the same breath. Good news: he's not going to Texas this summer, because his fourth and latest book, The Collective, is published this month and he's going on a book tour so...
A Yellow 'Country of Origin'
Technically, writer Don Lee is a third-generation Korean American. But he was born in Tokyo where his father was working for the U.S. State Department. Then after moving...
A quirky debut collection populated by the inhabitants of a fictional California seaside town, not unlike Half Moon Bay. Lee's memorable characters are so real, you'll swear you know some of them! Absolutely fabulous.
Review: <a href="http://bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com/files/2009/08/amagazine-2001-0607-new-and-notable.pdf"...
