The Dissident

Mr Yuan leaves China for Los Angeles in 2000, for a year-long artistic fellowship, organized by Harry Lin – an art professor at UCLA.

It’s been organized so that he has time to produce his own work and also teaches at St. Anselm’s School for Girls.

He’s staying with a well-heeled local family. Gordon Travers, paterfamilias, is a genealogy-obsessed professor of psychiatry, a colleague of Lin’s.

Gordon’s wife Cece collects waifs and strays –mostly, but not exclusively animals - and helps out at daughter Olivia’s school (St, Anselm’s). Max, their son, is currently doing community service, having been caught driving alone, despite only having a learner’s licence. There was also a gun in the glove compartment.

Shortly after Yuan arrives, another guest appears, unannounced, in Gordon and Cece’s garden. It’s Phil, Gordon’s brother, a charming waster who hasn’t been back to visit since Gordon had ‘essentially banished him from the family’ ten years previously. But he’s had some good news, and this time – ostensibly at least – he’s visiting LA on business.

Meanwhile, although Yuan obviously enjoys the teaching part of his fellowship, questions about his work, his time in prison, or any other aspect of his past make him uncomfortable. Is it because he’s chary of talking about his artistic ideas until they’re fully realized? Because his past is too painful to revisit? Or is there something else?

Peopled with fab characters – from the main protagonists, through the performance artists in Beijing’s short-lived artists’ enclave, East Village (based on the real-life group photographer Rong Rong worked with), to the mostly privileged, bitchy and unimaginative St Anselm’s schoolgirls, The Dissident is beautifully written, skillfully plotted and, overall, a terrific read.