"A Tender Age" by Chang-Rae Lee

 

Chang-Rae Lee has blessed us with yet another superb entry with A Tender Age. A story of a Korean boy growing up in a mixed-race, lower middle-class neighborhood near New York, it achieves a stunningly effective verisimilitude, and a very rare depth of emotion. That Lee achieves these strokes while exploring the life of an 11 year-old boy proves his mastery  once again, as though it were required.

Our pre-pubescent hero’s given name is Jeon-Gi (with the glottal stop ‘G’ as in gecko), and all outside of his family who know him call him “J.G.” J.G. is devoted to his mother, although he’s embarrassed when she garbles her words at the grocery store. His family generally struggles in this fast-paced alien environment, but young J.G. has brains, moderate athleticism, and a child’s active imagination and sense of his own importance.

These attributes—his ego and his narrow but vivid worldview—get him into serious trouble, enough to get him suspended from school at age 11. He embarks on an endless series of appointments with counselors, which J.G. half-heartedly participates in, sometimes with positive results, sometimes without results at all. That summer he celebrates turning 11 at a woodsy camp upstate, with dozens of other Korean kids his own age. This pivotal episode, full of progress and personal growth for him, comprises a healthy portion of the book. Unfortunately it ends with an accident that results in a severe injury (not to J.G.), and a tragic misunderstanding.  The camping experience affects J.G.’s life, both in terms of his reputation and his actual path forward. 

Lee presents a story full of truth and consequences, for a boy who pits himself against fate, and suffers society’s corrective steps as a result. I can’t see how one could improve on Lee’s treatment of this boy’s life: the imagination, the childish longings and aspirations, the fervid loves and hates—it’s all there, vivid and true to life. Take up A Tender Age for its delightful, overwrought boy as he forges his way, full of hope, through his early life. It’s memorable, heartfelt, and highly effective.