SOURCE: "Stranger in a Strange Land," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 19, 1995, pp. 3, 13.

[Eder, a nationally known journalist and critic, won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1987. In the following mixed review of Native Speaker, he praises Lee's depiction of the Korean-American immigrant experience but criticizes his handling of the novel's genre elements.]

When she temporarily walks out, Henry's wife, Lelia, hands him "a list" of who he is. She writes, among other things: "You are surreptitious … B plus student of life … illegal alien … emotional alien … genre bug … yellow peril: neo-American … stranger … follower … traitor…."

Like the author, Chang-rae Lee, Henry is a Korean-American. Instead of a writer he is a spy; but it is clear that his spy condition is more important as a symbol than as a plot element. The plot of Native Speaker is garish and strained, in fact. The novel's strength lies in its...