Dispatches from the Cold: A Novel

Leonard Chang

Black Heron Press, 1998 - Fiction - 289 pages

What would you do if strange letters began appearing in your mail box? Read them? When the unnamed narrator of this novel opens misdirected letters, he enters the harsh, disturbing world of Farrel Gorden. Gorden, an assistant manager in a sporting goods store near New Hampshire, hates his new Korean- American boss and is on the verge of losing control of his hatred. As we watch the narrator reconstruct the recent events in Gorden's life, including an affair with his boss' wife and the wrenching consequences that follow, the paths of these two disparate characters-letter reader and letter writer-converge violently as each intrudes on the life of the other. This is a story that blurs the distinction between the real and the imaginary, the violent and the mundane, and negotiates the exterior world and interior workings of a vengeful mind. "Chang narrates his passionate, downbeat tale with naturalistic distance and an authentic, even microscopic grasp of the...dead-end world Farrel [Gorden] inhabits...Chang is an exceptionally talented writer..."-Kirkus Reviews

What people are saying

Review: Dispatches from the Cold

User Review  - Haeri - Goodreads

Almost a year has gone by since I plucked this book from the library shelves. I was in a "must read American writers of Korean descent" phase. There, between the bookshelves' narrow aisle, I crouched ...

Review: Dispatches from the Cold

User Review  - Katie M. - Goodreads

Exceedingly creepy story about a man who mistakenly begins receiving long, detailed letters from a depressed guy with a dead-end job up in rural New Hampshire who thinks he's writing to his sister in ...

Contents

• Section 1: 9
• Section 2: 16
• Section 3: 50
• Section 4: 69
• Section 5: 87
• Section 6: 96
• Section 7: 103
• Section 8: 138
• Section 9: 165
• Section 10: 183
• Section 11: 204
• Section 12: 213
• Section 13: 225
• Section 14: 231
• Section 15: 242
• Section 16: 264
• Section 17: 277
• Section 18: 278
• Section 19: 281
• Section 20: 287
• Section 21: 289
• Section 22: 290
• Section 23: 297

About the author

Leonard Chang was born in New York City and studied philosophy at Dartmouth College and Harvard University. He received his MFA from the University of California at Irvine and is the author of five previous novels. His books have been translated into Japanese, French and Korean, and are taught at universities around the world. He has received critical recognition and was a finalist for the Edgar Award.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Dispatches from the Cold: A Novel
• Author: Leonard Chang
• Publisher: Black Heron Press, 1998
• ISBN: 0930773497, 9780930773496
• Length: 289 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Literary