CANR
WORK TITLE: 888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS
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CITY: Forest Hills, Queens
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
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PERSONAL
Born in Queens, NY; married Erica.
EDUCATION:New York University, M.F.A.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, poet, and publishing executive. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, sales manager. Previously, performed as a singer/songwriter.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Abraham Yu-Young Chang is an American writer, poet, and publishing executive. He was born in Queens, New York and attended college in Boston and abroad before earning a master’s degree in creative writing from New York University. Chang spent years performing as a singer/songwriter throughout New York in the 2000s, while simultaneously working in various positions at publishing companies. As of early-2024, he served as a sales manager in the special markets department of Simon & Schuster.
In 2024, Chang released his first novel, 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers. Set in the 1990s, it stars Young Wang, a student at New York University who is obsessed with numbers. Young has a list of numbers that he updates regularly, categorizing the numbers as good or bad. While the number 1 is considered to be among the good ones, 44 is one of the worst. Young’s uncle, Su Su, shares an anecdote with Young that suggests that each person has seven great loves, and the number component intrigues Young. He looks back on his past relationships, identifying previous loves of his life. While working at a used CD and DVD store, Young meets another student named Elena Ji-Yoon Renee Valentina Yasuda, whom he believes may be the next of his seven loves. Young gets to know the quirky Erena, as he balances relationships with his family members and friends.
A critic in Kirkus Reviews offered a mixed assessment of 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers. The critic ultimately called the novel “a misfire” but asserted: “Chang has heart, there’s no doubt about that.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2024, review of 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers.
ONLINE
Abraham Chang website, https://www.abrahamchang.com/ (April 15, 2024).
Abraham Chang music website, https://abechangrocks.com/ (April 15, 2024).
is an award-winning published poet and received his MFA from the NYU Creative Writing Program. He has worked in the publishing industry since 2000 and is currently a sales manager in the Special Markets department at Simon & Schuster. He lives in Forest Hills, Queens, with his wife, Erica—and a substantial collection of Blu-rays, vinyl records, comic books, and action figures. 888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS is his debut novel.
I spent much of the ‘00s as a singer / songwriter playing the bar scene in NYC. This is my archived music website.
I fully support Wordsworth’s notion that the best poetry / writing comes as a result of the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings… recollected in tranquility.” I didn’t have a lot of “tranquiltiy” and worked out a lot of those powerful feelings on stage, as much as I did on the page. I’ll get around to posting lyrics one day - but check out the old music website for a sense of who Abe was in the ‘00s. https://abechangrocks.com/
Abraham Chang is a "retransplanted" New Yorker. This young Chinese–American poet/musician was born and raised in Queens, NY and attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. He spent his college years in Boston and abroad. In 1998, after Abe received an Academy of American Poets Prize, he returned to New York and attended the MFA program in Creative Writing at NYU. During the course of the program Abe worked with several award-winning poets including Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Donald Hall and Abe’s mentor, Philip Levine. Abe's music is an eclectic blend of his poetic verse set to a vibrant mix of hard rock, folk, indie, electronica, and pop-punk. Each song tells a story--often of redemption and heartbreak. Abe's material not only touches on the emotional tides of the human condition, but he also writes songs that are infused with humor, wit, and the joy of a fast beating heart. Armed with an acoustic six string and a smart mouth, Abe's live shows are infamous for unique mini-cover songs, "themes," and true-life tales of the inspiration behind the music. Never one to just sit and strum, Abe fiercely attacks each song as if it was his last....and cracks jokes in between. Abe Chang recorded an independently released album entitled "just in case i lose you" in 1998 and an EP, "lucky insouciance: 7 live & acoustic" in 2002. In 2005, his first full length CD, "lo-fi is chic." was released. He is currently working on "revenge made easy" for a 2009 album release. He perpetually plays live solo shows in NYC and along the East Coast including venues such as: the green room, Manhattan Theatre Source, Teabag: AMPLIFIED, PIANOS, Laugh Lounge, Fat Baby Bar, and the Nightingale Lounge. He has also performed at Tufts University, Amherst University, MIT, UPENN, Oldie Goodie (Taiwan), Beecher's Comedy Madhouse, Yi Jia, and The Rivers in the Desert Advocacy Center. He has also performed on the nationally syndicated PBS television program "Asian America" and on SINO TV's morning show. In 2007, a commercial parody that Abe starred in was featured in an MTV/Viacom talent search. Abe Chang's poetry has been published in journals from Tufts University and Columbia University. His poetry has also appeared in China Dahhhl, the Asian American Pacific Journal, Carriage House Review, Lotus Magazine (*winning a "Sleepy Allen Time Award"), NY Spirit Magazine, and in Holt, Rinehart and Winston's English Literature textbook series. Abe's poetry has also been used in the Montgomery County standardized tests. Abe has also written numerous features for Anime Insider magazine. He has contributed to the Rough Guide to Graphic Novels, and several books for DK Publishing. * * * Abe uses: Gibson, Fender, Martin, and Ibanez guitars. Pearl drums, Zildjian and Sabian cymbals, AKG and Samson mics, Korg EMX beats, and Fostex digi8trackyumminess. * * *
abe's faves and raves: Abe listens to: Superchunk, Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers,The Smiths, Morrissey, U2, Shudder to Think, The Killers, THRICE, Coheed and Cambria, Sunny Day Real Estate, Placebo, Suede, The Bravery, The Shins, Arcade Fire, Pulp, Blur, Coldplay, MUSE, The Cure, depeche mode, Radiohead, Portishead, Interpol, Bright Eyes, THE FAINT, My Chemical Romance, Foo Fighters, Ladytron, Jimmy Eat World, Thursday, Dashboard Confessional, Alkaline Trio, The Get Up Kids, Hot Rod Circuit, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, AFI, TOOL, A Perfect Circle, Iron Maiden, Korn, Smashing Pumpkins, Flickerstick, STP, NIN, Sisters of Mercy, Belle and Sebastian, Portishead, Pixies, Tori Amos, Juliana Hatfield, Jonatha Brooke, Do As Infinity, M-flo, Number Twelve, 80's metal, ol skool hip-hop. Abe reads: Philip Levine, Louise Gluck, Deborah Digges, Donald Hall, Marie Howe, Alice Sebold, Zadie Smith, Chang-Rae Lee, Irvine Welsh, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughn, Mark Millar, David Sedaris, Chuck Klosterman, Dave Eggers, Chuck Pahlaniuk. Abe watches: Conan O' Brien, Arrested Development, Mr. Show, Kids in the Hall, Strangers with Candy, Buffy!, battlestar galactica, The Sopranos, The Office, Coupling, LOST, Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, Dexter, Weeds, Scrubs, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Everybody Loves Raymond, nip/tuck, VERONICA MARS, Wonderfalls, Sex and the City, Boy Meets World, Family Guy, Simpsons, Futurama, South Park, and anime anime anime. Abe's fave movies: Army of Darkness, The Professional, Amelie, kisskissbangbang, Three Colours Trilogy, Memento, The Usual Suspects, John Hughes movies, Kung Fu Panda, Iron Man, Election, Roman Holiday, Kill Bill, Battle Royale, Donnie Darko, Harold and Maude, Mean Girls, Star Wars, the Adam Sandler oeuvre....and anything Kevin Smith. Abe loves comic books. Abe loves yorkies and retrievers. Abe loves a good thai iced tea. Abe loves giant robots and cute girls with guns. Abe loves a good crisp, buttondown shirt. Abe loves short walks on a muddy trailway. Abe loves domestic movies in color. Abe loves ...you.
QUOTED: "a misfire" "Chang has heart, there's no doubt about that."
Chang, Abraham 888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS Flatiron Books (Fiction None) $29.99 5, 7 ISBN: 9781250910783
A college student with a thing for music, movies, and numbers falls in love.
Young Wang, the protagonist of Chang's debut novel, has a thing for numbers. The New York University student keeps an updated list of them, good and bad: 1, for example, is "the first, the best. GOOD," while 44 is "SO BAD. ALWAYS AVOID." So when his uncle, Su Su, tells him that "we only get seven great loves in life," he takes it seriously, especially when he meets Erena, a fellow NYU student, at the used CD and DVD store where he works. (As you may have guessed, this novel is set in the 1990s.) Erena, whose quirk meter is off the charts, introduces herself thusly: "I'm Erena. Erena Ji-Yoon Renee Valentina Yasuda. It's a lot, but it accurately conveys the lineage of this petite package of pulchritude--little bit of this, little bit of that. It's like the whole Axis ran riot over my entire family tree! Hello? Humor? I made a funny?" The novel chronicles the relationship between Young and Erena, interspersed with Young's remembrances of his previous loves, his relationship with his family and his best friends, and letters from Su Su, a hippie who has embraced a peripatetic lifestyle. Unfortunately, these threads never come together--Young is a depressed cipher, and Erena, who says things like "So, voilà, bingobango," is such a Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype that she makes Natalie Portman's character in Garden State look like Nurse Ratched. (Young, himself a cinephile, would get that reference.) The pace of the novel is slow despite the hyper dialogue and Chang's extremely liberal use of ALL CAPS and italics, and the ending is unsatisfying.
Chang has heart, there's no doubt about that, but this novel is a misfire.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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Source Citation
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"Chang, Abraham: 888 LOVE AND THE DIVINE BURDEN OF NUMBERS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A786185712/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=5316f5d3. Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.