'My Year Abroad': A dropout's wild lessons in life and business

The perfect place to hide from your past may be suburban New Jersey. That's what Tiller, the young narrator of Chang-rae Lee's "My Year Abroad" thinks. In his sixth novel, Lee records the adventures of this 21-year-old college dropout in a wild tale that moves coolly between satire and thriller.

Tiller is supposed to be in college on an overseas program, but unbeknown to his dad, he has spent the last few months on a series of bizarre adventures in Asia. Upon their conclusion, he shacks up with a new girlfriend, Val, and her son, who are in a witness protection program and share Tiller's penchant for hiding in plain sight. Entrenched in her own secrets, Val does not pry into Tiller's troubles as he attempts to process recent tumultuous events that have left him "smashed to raw bits."

The best way to forget your problems? Find a whole new set of them. The seemingly sweet Tiller gets wrapped up in Val's troubles, nonchalantly slashing the tire of a sinister man looking for her. That he is capable of such an action regardless of the consequences, he explains, is a result of whatever happened to him during his time in Asia, as he is a changed person, capable of darkness and unafraid of death.

As Tiller reveals through flashbacks, it was a chance encounter with a fascinating character named Pong Lou that led to an extraordinary turn of events for him. Pong, a Chinese immigrant, is a Big Pharma chemist by day and a rollicking creative entrepreneur by night. He is simultaneously humble and ruthlessly enterprising. The son of artists destroyed by the Red Guards in Maoist China, he has climbed the lowly onion-peeling immigrant ranks of an American Chinese restaurant to arrive at the pinnacle of prosperous New Jersey life as a business owner. Spotting a shining potential in Tiller, Pong whisks him off on international ventures as an assistant. Pong becomes a hero to Tiller, who is running, perhaps, from the sad tatters of his family life, which has been defined by his mother's inexplicable and abrupt abandonment of him and his father.

To the adrift and hungry Tiller, Pong is a revelation. Thrust into bewildering situation after bewildering situation as Pong convenes with his various business partners in Asia, Tiller discovers he has preternatural talents that he never imagined, including a gift for karaoke which will serve him in unexpected ways.

As the narrative hurtles toward a shocking and cinematic climax, Tiller's funny and naive observations keep the reader rooting for this wonderfully magnetic lost soul and his enigmatic mentor. Through Tiller's sweet vulnerability and his steadfast grasp on hope, Lee tells a story of what it means to be plucked from darkness into the light of recognition, and in doing so, explores the fundamental human desires to be seen and to love.