{"id":1231,"date":"2004-09-01T21:28:47","date_gmt":"2004-09-02T01:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=1231"},"modified":"2015-08-17T10:47:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T14:47:59","slug":"aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chang-rae<\/a>Flying Aloft with Chang-rae Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking in superlatives about Chang-rae Lee or his work\u00a0seems somewhat clich\u00e9d these days. All three of his novels,\u00a0Native Speaker, A Gesture Life,<\/em> and his latest, Aloft<\/em>, have\u00a0been so lavishly lauded that coming up with yet another accolade\u00a0seems nothing less than redundant. Suffice it to say that\u00a0Lee is surely one of our best writers ever, regardless of age, ethnicity,\u00a0gender, economic background, or social status. Any way\u00a0you look at it, the result is the same: He is the real thing.<\/p>\n

Lee admits that he was always writing little stories, even as he\u00a0always wanted to write books. Still, he wasn\u2019t quite ready to\u00a0declare himself a writer to the outside world until after a year of\u00a0working as an equities analyst at a New York investment bank.\u00a0Consciously or not, Lee\u2019s first career decision seems to have\u00a0been struck as if in answer to achieving what might be considered\u00a0the typical immigrant dream.<\/p>\n

Born in Seoul, Korea, Lee arrived in the United States in\u00a01968 at age three with his mother and his sister to join Lee\u2019s\u00a0father in Pittsburgh, where the elder Lee was completing his\u00a0residency in psychiatry. Less than a year later, the family moved\u00a0to New York City\u2019s Upper West Side before eventually settling\u00a0in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, north of\u00a0Manhattan. Like many immigrant Asian Americans, the Lees\u00a0followed the all-too-familiar search for better and even still better\u00a0schools for the sake of the children.<\/p>\n

As a result, Lee had an extremely privileged education. From\u00a0Westchester he went to the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy\u00a0in New Hampshire and then landed at Yale University, graduating\u00a0with an English degree, which was fitting with his love of\u00a0books. When he went to work directly after graduation on Wall\u00a0Street, ensconced in a financially promising career, he appeared\u00a0to be the epitome of the immigrant success story. …[click here for more<\/a>]\n

Author interview<\/strong>: The Bloomsbury Review<\/em>, September\/October 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"aloft\"Flying Aloft with Chang-rae Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking in superlatives about Chang-rae Lee or his work seems somewhat clich\u00e9d these days. All three of his novels, Native Speaker, A Gesture Life,<\/em> and his latest, Aloft<\/em>, have been so lavishly lauded that coming up with yet another accolade seems nothing less than redundant. Suffice it to say that Lee is surely one of our best writers ever, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, economic background, or social status. Any way you look at it, the result is the same: He is the real thing.<\/p>\n

Lee admits that he was always writing little stories, even as he always wanted to write books. Still, he wasn\u2019t quite ready to declare himself a writer to the outside world until after a year of working as an equities analyst at a New York investment bank. Consciously or not, Lee\u2019s first career decision seems to have been struck as if in answer to achieving what might be considered the typical immigrant dream. <\/p>\n

Born in Seoul, Korea, Lee arrived in the United States in 1968 at age three with his mother and his sister to join Lee\u2019s father in Pittsburgh, where the elder Lee was completing his residency in psychiatry. Less than a year later, the family moved to New York City\u2019s Upper West Side before eventually settling in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, north of Manhattan. Like many immigrant Asian Americans, the Lees followed the all-too-familiar search for better and even still better schools for the sake of the children. <\/p>\n

As a result, Lee had an extremely privileged education. From Westchester he went to the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then landed at Yale University, graduating with an English degree, which was fitting with his love of books. When he went to work directly after graduation on Wall Street, ensconced in a financially promising career, he appeared to be the epitome of the immigrant success story. …[click here for more<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Author interview<\/strong>: The Bloomsbury Review<\/em>, September\/October 2004<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2004<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6,38,60,6535],"tags":[4524,1968,6608,842,10,189,11,13,145,39,44],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-fiction","category-korean-american","category-nonethnic-specific","category-repost","tag-aloft","tag-bloomsbury-review","tag-bookdragon","tag-chang-rae-lee","tag-family","tag-father-son-relationship","tag-friendship","tag-love","tag-mixed-race-issues","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-siblings"],"yoast_head":"\nAloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Flying Aloft with Chang-rae Lee Speaking in superlatives about Chang-rae Lee or his work seems somewhat clich\u00e9d these days. All three of his novels, Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and his latest, Aloft, have been so lavishly lauded that coming up with yet another accolade seems nothing less than redundant. Suffice it to say that Lee is surely one of our best writers ever, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, economic background, or social status. Any way you look at it, the result is the same: He is the real thing. Lee admits that he was always writing little stories, even as he always wanted to write books. Still, he wasn\u2019t quite ready to declare himself a writer to the outside world until after a year of working as an equities analyst at a New York investment bank. Consciously or not, Lee\u2019s first career decision seems to have been struck as if in answer to achieving what might be considered the typical immigrant dream. Born in Seoul, Korea, Lee arrived in the United States in 1968 at age three with his mother and his sister to join Lee\u2019s father in Pittsburgh, where the elder Lee was completing his residency in psychiatry. Less than a year later, the family moved to New York City\u2019s Upper West Side before eventually settling in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, north of Manhattan. Like many immigrant Asian Americans, the Lees followed the all-too-familiar search for better and even still better schools for the sake of the children. As a result, Lee had an extremely privileged education. From Westchester he went to the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then landed at Yale University, graduating with an English degree, which was fitting with his love of books. When he went to work directly after graduation on Wall Street, ensconced in a financially promising career, he appeared to be the epitome of the immigrant success story. ...[click here for more] Author interview: The Bloomsbury Review, September\/October 2004 Readers: Adult Published: 2004\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-09-02T01:28:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T14:47:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/09\/Chang-rae-Lee-Princeton.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review] - BookDragon","og_description":"Flying Aloft with Chang-rae Lee Speaking in superlatives about Chang-rae Lee or his work seems somewhat clich\u00e9d these days. All three of his novels, Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and his latest, Aloft, have been so lavishly lauded that coming up with yet another accolade seems nothing less than redundant. Suffice it to say that Lee is surely one of our best writers ever, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, economic background, or social status. Any way you look at it, the result is the same: He is the real thing. Lee admits that he was always writing little stories, even as he always wanted to write books. Still, he wasn\u2019t quite ready to declare himself a writer to the outside world until after a year of working as an equities analyst at a New York investment bank. Consciously or not, Lee\u2019s first career decision seems to have been struck as if in answer to achieving what might be considered the typical immigrant dream. Born in Seoul, Korea, Lee arrived in the United States in 1968 at age three with his mother and his sister to join Lee\u2019s father in Pittsburgh, where the elder Lee was completing his residency in psychiatry. Less than a year later, the family moved to New York City\u2019s Upper West Side before eventually settling in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, north of Manhattan. Like many immigrant Asian Americans, the Lees followed the all-too-familiar search for better and even still better schools for the sake of the children. As a result, Lee had an extremely privileged education. From Westchester he went to the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then landed at Yale University, graduating with an English degree, which was fitting with his love of books. When he went to work directly after graduation on Wall Street, ensconced in a financially promising career, he appeared to be the epitome of the immigrant success story. ...[click here for more] Author interview: The Bloomsbury Review, September\/October 2004 Readers: Adult Published: 2004","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2004-09-02T01:28:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T14:47:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1536,"height":2048,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2004\/09\/Chang-rae-Lee-Princeton.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/","name":"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review] - BookDragon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-09-02T01:28:47+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-17T14:47:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/aloft-by-chang-rae-lee-author-interview-in-bloomsbury-review\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Aloft by Chang-rae Lee + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review]"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#website","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/","name":"BookDragon","description":"Books for the Diverse Reader","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/a00f6dcfcb279c75f3f992ad2919d51d","name":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/79b5f08575e8962bd00388cd126d374b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/@SmithsonianAPA"],"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/author\/riemert\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35426,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/35426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}