A Gesture Life A Novel

A Gesture Life is the story of a proper man, an upstanding citizen, who has come to epitomize the decorous values of his New York suburban town. Courteous, honest, hardworking, and impenetrable, Franklin Hata, a Japanese man of Korean birth, is careful to never overstep his bounds and to make his neighbors comfortable in his presence. He keeps his garden well tended, bids his customers good-bye at the doorway of his medical supply shop, ignores the taunts of local boys. Yet as his story unfolds, precipitated by the small events that take place around him, we see his life begin to unravel. We learn of an adopted daughter, who has vanished from his life, a romantic relationship gone sour; a minor conflagration that threatens the foundation of the life he has built. Gradually, we discover the mystery that has shaped the core of his being, his terrible, forbidden love for a young Korean comfort woman when he served as a medic in the Japanese army during World War II.

Chang-Rae Lee is the director of the MFA program at Hunter College in New York City.