Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

“One of the great queer novels . . . of our time.” — Brandon Taylor, GQ

Some books settle into you slowly. This one arrives like a tide — quiet at first, then impossible to ignore.

Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean-American boy growing up in Maine, his powerful soprano voice earning him a coveted place as section leader in his local boys choir. But the honor carries a terrible secret. When Fee discovers how the choir director treats the boys he selects, shame seals his silence — even as his closest friend, Peter, becomes the next in line. The director is eventually arrested. Peter is not saved. And Fee carries the weight of that silence for years.

When Fee returns to his hometown as a teacher at a private school, he encounters a student who looks startlingly like Peter — and who is the choir director’s son. Old grief resurfaces. Old questions demand new answers.

Told with “the force of a dream and the heft of a life” — Annie Dillard

This award-winning debut is lyrical, devastating, and deeply humane. It is a novel about survival, guilt, queerness, and the long, complicated work of becoming whole. From the bestselling author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, it announced Alexander Chee as, in the words of Publisher’s Weekly, “a major talent whose career will bear watching.”

Set partly in Maine — the salt air, the small towns, the particular loneliness of growing up somewhere beautiful and quiet — this one will feel close to home in more ways than one.

A landmark of queer literary fiction. Not to be missed.

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