The Dissident

by NellFreudenberger (Author)

• Used

  Abridged
  2007

  $3.47

  A famous Chinese performance artist and political activist accepts an artist's residency in Los Angeles, where he is to stay with a wealthy Beverly Hills family. From the moment he arrives, however, it becomes clear that all is not what it seems -- on either side. The dissident seems strangely reluctant to talk about his past, and is happier teaching than working on projects of his own; his hosts appear -- on the surface at least -- to be a happy, nuclear family, yet their relationships are, in fact, fraught with rivalries and tensions.

  Set in Los Angeles and Beijing, The Dissident tells the story of a life in flux and a family near breaking point -- and what happens when the two collide.

  'Nell Freudenberger is awesomely skilled at making characters, setting scenes, and launching an old-fashioned plot suited to the 21st century. These tremendous novelistic powers would justify some showing off, but Freudenberger never flaunts her gifts. She merely puts them to use. Such mature, self-effacing accomplishment is remarkable anywhere -- but in a first novel? Try suspending that disbelief' Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.47

  From the award-winning author of Lucky Girls comes an intricately woven novel about secrets, love, art, identity and the shining chaos of everyday American life. Yuan Zho, a celebrated Chinese performance artist and political dissident, has accepted a one year's artist's residency in Los Angeles. He is to be a Visiting Scholar at the St Anselm's School for Girls, teaching advanced art, and hosted by one of the school's most devoted families: the wealthy if dysfunctional Traverses. The Traverses are too preoccupied with their own problems to pay their foreign guest much attention, and the dissident is delighted to be left alone - his past links with the radical movements give him good reason to avoid careful scrutiny. The trouble starts when he and his American hosts begin to view one another with clearer eyes.

  `Freudenberger is most certainly the genuine article.' Guardian

  `Freudenberger's novel unfolds into that rare thing, a work of poetics itself, a medication in art. The fact that she does it with such wit and compassion, such generosity of mind and heart, is miraculous.' T he Times

  `A fiercely intelligent first novel . . . Lots of sharp, funny dialogue, it has something of a Lost in Translation feel.' Eve Magazine

  `Written in prose as clear as birdsong, the novel grips from first to last.' Scotland on Sunday