"A coming-of-age novel in the grand Romantic tradition, where passions run high, Cupid stalks Psyche, and love shares the dance floor with death . . . A lovely, nuanced, never predictable portrait of a creative soul in the throes of becoming." - Washington Post Book World
 
Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean-American boy growing up in Maine whose powerful soprano voice wins him a place as section leader of the first sopranos in his local boys choir. But when, on a retreat, Fee discovers how the director treats the boys he makes section leader, he is so ashamed, he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, Fee’s best friend, is in line to be next. The director is eventually arrested, and Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. 
  
Years later, after he has carefully pieced a new life together, Fee takes a job at a private school near his hometown. There he meets a young student, Arden, who, to his shock, is the picture of Peter—and the son of his old choir director.     
  
Told with “the force of a dream and the heft of a life” (Annie Dillard), this is a haunting, lyrically written debut novel that marked Chee “as a major talent whose career will bear watching” (Publisher’s Weekly). 

Available at your preferred bookseller. Buy it now.

Edinburgh, published by Welcome Rain LLC, in cloth, October, 2001 and Picador USA, in paperback, October, 2002.

Selected by Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist and Kirkus Reviews as a Notable Debut of 2001. Excerpted by Out and the Washington Post on their websites. A Booksense 76 Independent Booksellers notable paperback selection for January/February of 2003. Edinburgh is a winner of the Lambda Editor’s Choice Prize, the Asian American Writers Workshop Literature Award, the Michener, and was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Prize, 2003.