"Native Speaker" author Lee tells the story of Fan, who lives in a future America and is a member of a labor colony in what used to Baltimore, Md. In this vision of what will come, some work to provide food for the rich charter villages nearby. However, when the man Fan loves disappears, she sets out on a journey to find him, discovering more about her world along the way. "It's very of-the-moment in that it's a dystopian novel," says Nelson. "It's about the need to connect and social stratification and techology."
