A Gesture Life [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Riverhead; Reprint. edition (January 1, 1999)
• ASIN: B002F12ZDW
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (116 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Chang-Rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, A Gesture Life, and Aloft. Selected by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best writers under forty, Chang-Rae Lee teaches writing at Princeton university.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shocking and Sanguine and Completely Original, December 4, 1999

By 

timothy mcinerney (Moraga, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Gesture Life: A Novel (Hardcover)

From its first lines -- in which Lee's Doc Hata falsely states without a touch of irony, "They know me here" -- until the end when he finally begins to know himself, A Gesture Life breaks new ground. It has been a long time since an author, Wallace Stegner comes too mind, has handled the flashback so masterfully. Here the reader won't find himself favoring one story over another, as is usually the case with books that employ the flashback. In his second novel Lee explores the atrocities of the Japanese military, particularly those inflicted on the "comfort women," who were forced to pleasure the officers and enlisted men, through the eyes of Doc Hata, a former Imperial Navy medic who becomes not a physician but a revered small-town medical supplier in upstate New York. But more than simply the horror, this novel explores how these atrocities along with unperformed acts of violence, make it impossible for him to feel joy and pain and love. What happens during World War II is not past, but lives on and has an impact on each one of Hata's post-war relationships. Chang-rae Lee explores so many themes -- among them adoption, friendship, isolation, community, rancor, forgiveness -- and yet succeeds in holding the reader's thrall on every page. Lee delivers so many surprises, not least of which is a hopeful yet realistic resolution. You'll carry the characters, especially its imperfect protagonist, with you for years

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Japanese immigrant faces his tragic past, November 24, 1999

By 

Cityview (Des Moines, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Gesture Life: A Novel (Hardcover)

During World War II, Korean women were forced to serve as "comfort women," satisfying the sexual needs of the Japanese soldiers to ensure high morale. This exploitation was one of the ugliest wartime acts a country has ever committed against women. Today, many of the surviving women are seeking reparations from the Japanese government. A tragic incident involving a comfort woman forever shapes the life of Franklin "Doc" Hata, the central character in Chang-Rae Lee's moving, gracefully written "A Gesture Life." Hata is a retired Japanese businessman who lives in a quaint, suburban New York village where he is revered as a community leader for his polite, respectful ways. But though his manner has brought respect, it has also brought problems. His cool remove scuttles a love affair with a passionate widow and causes his adopted daughter to rebel and disappear from his life. After Hata nearly burns down his house and is hospitalized, his thoughts drift back to his years in the Japanese army. In the jungles of Burma, Hata makes the mistake of falling in love with a comfort woman he calls "K," who also is the object of a superior officer's desire. Hata, who was born Korean but adopted by a Japanese family, takes a stand to protect K, which results in heart-wrenching viciousness that forever shapes the way he deals with others, particularly women. "A Gesture Life" is not filled with dramatic moments, but the slow, graceful style Lee uses to let Doc Hata tell his story is appropriate and oddly compelling. The book succeeds because it so completely tells the story of an elderly Japanese immigrant facing the last years of his life. It also provides an eye-opening glimpse at one of the cruelest chapters in Japanese history.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and Insidious, March 8, 2001

By 

"troytron" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Gesture Life: A Novel (Paperback)

Chang-rae Lee's 'A Gesture Life' pulls the reader's mind, emotions, and spirit into the snapshot-world of Doc Hata's town, Bedley Run--a typical American berg on the outskirts of NYC. Here, our senses are soothed by the images of stable, normal Americana, and the successful Japanese-American retiree who is comfortably part of that landscape. It's almost a vision of utter serenity at first, but Lee's transcendent prose makes sure that we recognize another truth: beneath all of this security, there is a drumbeat of primordial heartbreak, and a keening sense of loss. Slowly, expertly, without the reader even expecting it, Lee unfolds a tale of immense but elegant grief. He leads the reader through a veritable labyrinth of shocking regrets, brought on by experiences that hide so perfectly beneath the veneer of the main character's 'life of gesture.' The book is astonishing for its lyrical perfection, its poetic structure, and seamless continuity. It is truly a soul work to be savored and conveys a serious lesson about the tragedy of being human. Five shooting stars.