How to write an autobiographical novel : essays / by Alexander Chee.

"A Mariner Original."

The curse -- The querent -- The writing life -- 1989 -- Girl -- After Peter -- My parade -- Mr. and Mrs. B -- 100 things about writing a novel -- The rosary -- Inheritance -- Impostor -- The autobiography of my novel -- The guardians -- How to write an autobiographical novel -- On becoming an American writer.

" ... How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing--Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley--the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump."--Front flip cover.