Welcome to author Don Lee's official website. Don's most recent novel, Wrack and Ruin, was published by W.W. Norton in April 2008. His first novel, Country of Origin, was released by Norton in July 2004. Yellow, his first book, a collection of short stories, was published by Norton in 2001.

• Facebook author fan page.

• Don's new novel, The Collective, will appear on July 16, 2012, from W.W. Norton. Here's the cover, and also the catalog copy:
  
  
  
  A sparkling bildungsroman about friendship and betrayal, art and race.
  
  In 1988, Eric Cho, an aspiring writer, arrives at Macalester College. On his first day he meets a beautiful fledgling painter, Jessica Tsai, and another would-be novelist, the larger-than-life Joshua Yoon. Brilliant, bawdy, generous, and manipulative, Joshua alters the course of their lives, rallying them together when they face an adolescent act of racism.
  
  As adults in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the three friends reunite as the 3AC, the Asian American Artists Collective — together negotiating the demands of art, love, commerce, and idealism until another racially tinged controversy hits the headlines, this time with far greater consequences. Long after the 3AC has disbanded, Eric reflects on these events as he tries to make sense of Joshua's recent suicide.
  
  With wit, humor, and compassion, The Collective explores the dream of becoming an artist, and questions whether the reality is worth the sacrifice.

• Don's latest short story, "Late in the Day," was in the Spring 2010 issue of The Southern Review.

• Don began teaching at Temple University's M.F.A. program in creative writing in Philadelphia in the fall of 2009.

• The paperback for Wrack and Ruin is available, and discussion questions are online.
  
  

• Wrack and Ruin is about two brothers, one a sculptor/farmer, the other a movie producer/charlatan, and it revisits the town of Rosarita Bay, California, that was portrayed in Yellow. An excerpt of the first chapter appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of American Short Fiction.

• Wrack and Ruin is designed to be a farce, which is defined as:
  
  From Latin: farcire, “to stuff”; any work which evokes laughter by such devices of low comedy as physical buffoonery, rough wit, or the creation of ridiculous situations, and which is little concerned with subtlety of characterization or probability of plot, e.g., Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors.  —Literary Terms
  
  Farce is usually considered to be a boisterous comedy involving ludicrous action and dialogue which is intended to excite laughter through exaggeration and extravagance rather than by a realistic imitation of life. It contains exaggerated physical action which is often repeated, exaggeration of character and situation, absurd situations, and surprises in the form of unexpected appearances and disclosures. The characters and dialogue are almost always subservient to the plot and situation which are so complex that the events happen with bewildering rapidity.  —Glossary of Literary Terms