At the center of Don Lee's latest novel is Joshua Yoon, a charismatic aspiring novelist who draws in -- and repels -- others with his intellectual bravado and black-sheep persona. A student at the idyllic Macalester College of the late 1980s, the contrarian Joshua rails against its "old bourgeois concept of togetherness ... [and] PC liberalism" while his new friend Eric Cho embraces its "intimacy."

Though they have much in common, Joshua has arrived from the East Coast and has a complicated background; Eric is from Southern California and has always been one to blend in. The animated dialectic between their cynicism and idealism propels the narrative forward as they fumble exuberantly through their first year of college -- a heady mix of girls, self-recognition and strained loyalties. Their friend Jessica Tsai, a remote beauty and gifted young painter, provides a somewhat wary feminine perspective.

The thread picks up again later in Boston, where they grapple with financial realities and artistic self-doubt. In a flurry of optimism and defiance, they form the Asian American Artists' Collective. But before long, a combustible chain of events tests their commitment to art, their ideals and one another.

Lively and suspenseful, this novel masterfully probes the high-stakes contest between integrity and belonging. Lee's sympathy for his deeply human characters will captivate any reader.