Online - August 15, 2006

Whoa, Nelly

“The Dissident,” by Nell Freudenberger

Schadenfreude? Forget it.

Jealous lit types irked by the success of Lucky Girls, Nell Freudenberger’s dead-on book of short stories, should prepare to be disappointed.

The PYT author skips sophomore slump with her much-anticipated first novel, The Dissident, an edgy comedy of manners with a dose of suburban satire and mystery. (White Teeth meets The Ice Storm meets Hero.)

A Chinese political activist/performance artist travels from Beijing to Los Angeles and shacks up with a Beverly Hills family while working on his exhibition and teaching art at the daughter’s private high school.

The host family’s closets are chock-full of skeletons (mom: affair with brother-in-law, son: on probation). The artist’s secret past comes back to haunt him. As their stories unfold and converge, love, desire, ambition, deception, rivalry, and betrayal ensue.

So how to define the slight thrill you’ll get reading about the misfortunes of the book’s protagonists?

Let’s just call it schadenFreudenberger.

Available online at amazon.com.