A great book about identity politics and the difficulty of being an "artist" in modern America. The three protagonists, Joshua, Eric, and Jessica, meet as students at a small liberal arts college and form an Asian-American Artists collective. After college, they struggle to succeed in their chosen careers, compromising and making many mistakes along the way. What I loved about this book was that Lee perfectly captures the earnest idealism of young artists, and the internal struggles they face-- can Asian-American artists only make art about Asians? Is it OK for white writers to write Asian characters?-- that seem extremely important and meaningful within their communities but are virtually ignored in the face of the deeply-ingrained racism in the larger culture. Joshua reminded me a bit of the DFW character in the Marriage Plot-- very talented, but also difficult to be around and the cause of much drama and trauma amongst his friends. The book opens and closes with a suicide (something I also experienced among my college friends) and it's handled very thoughtfully. Lee obviously loves his Boston setting and I recognized many of the places he lovingly described. A great novel for those of us who attended SLACs in the 1990s and struggled to maintain our political ideals afterwards in the face of cold reality.