A Tender Age

A Novel

By: Chang-rae Lee

A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026

“Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?”—The Los Angeles Times

"He has redefined not only what it means to be American, but the fabric of the Great American Novel itself." —Jhumpa Lahiri

From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence.

A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family.

Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away—then thinking about it for the rest of his life.

Critic reviews

Praise for Chang-rae Lee

“I have no choice but to ask: Who is a greater novelist than Chang-rae Lee?”—The Los Angeles Times

“Nothing is rushed; nothing is overlooked… Lee understands that in art and in stories what is perhaps most valuable is not what can be explained but what can be felt.” –The Boston Globe

“The prose Chang-rae Lee writes is elliptical, riddling, poetic...beautifully made.” —The New Yorker

“[Chang-rae Lee] explores the fundamental human desires to be seen and to love.” —The Washington Post

“Lee’s writing style, as usual, is alive with wit and satiric social commentary… boisterous and fun.” —NPR, Fresh Air