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New York Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
A Novel Highlights a Dark Korean History and a Shattered Family's
FLASHLIGHT, by Susan Choi Friends are God's apology, it's said, for relations. In Susan Choi's ambitious new novel, 'Flashlight,' we're dropped into a shattered Korean American family, and friends are few and far between. This is a novel about exile in its multiple forms, and it reads like a history of loneliness. Nearly every person has the detachment of a survivor. A similar detachment — a narrative austerity that is one of Choi's hallmarks — is present in the book itself, for good and sometimes ill. This novel begins, as do Francoise Sagan's 'Bonjour Tristesse' and Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea,' on a beach. A father and his young daughter are out for a walk in the gloaming. He carries a flashlight. When they fail to return, search parties form. The girl is later found in the tide margin, hypothermic, barely alive, with little memory of what occurred. Her father, who can't swim, is gone — apparently drowned and carried out to sea. The girl's name is Louisa. She's 10 and precocious. Her father, an academic, is named Serk. That's what he goes by in America, at any rate. His impoverished Korean parents had named him Seok, and when he went with them as a child to Japan during World War II, so that they could find work, he was known in school as Hiroshi. He was a striver, and he loved being Hiroshi. 'Flashlight' spans decades, and four generations of Serk's family. The novel's abiding theme may be what one character wonders early on: if 'supernatural vengeance exists, for the person who tries to renounce his birthplace.' Serk's painfully split identities reflect the contested politics of the postwar era, with America and the Soviet Union (as well as Japan and China) jostling for advantage on the Korean Peninsula. Many writers are only partially conscious of the meanings in their work. Choi has set out to shine a flashlight, if you will, on a series of historical wrongs, the worst of them committed by North Korea. By the end of this novel, the author's research into these machinations, and some of their brutal human ramifications, including re-education camps, nearly swamps the book — the narrative begins to feel like reportage, like didactic historical exposé. It's hard to talk about the plot, and the resonances, of 'Flashlight' without dropping spoilers like a trail of seeds. But I will try to avoid them, out of deference to the reader but also to Choi, a major world writer who deserves the chance to reveal her cards slowly. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
10 books to read in June
Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your June reading list. Reading is a versatile summer activity: A book can educate you, entertain you and occasionally even do both of those things. Our selections this month include literary fiction about a parent's blurry past, Manhattan diaries from the Reagan era and a politically relevant road-trip novel. All of those and more promise to float your boat — or should we say your beach tote? Happy reading! Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins ReidBallantine: 352 pages, $30(June 3) It's the 1980s and astrophysicist Joan Goodwin is part of a coed NASA group training as astronauts — a process defined by fierce competition and persistent sexism. The narrative moves between Joan's ascent through the ranks, including a love story as explosive as a rocket launch, and a mid-decade disaster reminiscent of the Challenger tragedy. Space nerds and romance fans alike will love it. Flashlight: A Novel By Susan ChoiFarrar, Straus & Giroux: 464 pages, $30(June 3) Choi's new book began as a 2020 New Yorker story. Louisa's father Serk is Korean, while mother Anne hails from Ohio. Louisa was just 10 when, in the book's harrowing first chapter, Serk disappears. Unable to connect with Anne, even years later when the latter has developed multiple sclerosis, Louisa is challenging and compelling, much like this thoughtful book about families. The Slip: A Novel By Lucas SchaeferSimon & Schuster: 496 pages, $30(June 3) Terry Tucker's Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas, emerges as a vibrant crossroads where people of every age, race and gender meet. When Massachusetts teenager Nathan Rothstein, spending the summer with relatives, disappears, the diverse voices of his fellow gym members — immigrants, an unhoused man, a Playboy bunny-turned-beautician — add depth and intrigue, building toward a wildly original and unexpected conclusion. So Far Gone: A Novel By Jess WalterHarper: 272 pages, $30(June 10) Walter ('Beautiful Ruins') matches cadence to drama, channeling the unhinged narration of Rhys Kinnick, an environmental journalist whose anger over the planet's decline sparks a family rift and his retreat to a remote cabin. One morning, Rhys finds his grandchildren left on his doorstep. From there, the plot hurtles forward: kidnappings, frantic road trips, a festival rave and high-stakes showdowns. Wild as things get, humor and heart remain. Ecstasy: A Novel By Ivy PochodaPutnam: 224 pages, $28(June 17) Pochoda offers a twisty, modern take on Euripides, set at a luxurious 21st-century Greek resort. King Pentheus becomes Stavros, a wealthy, controlling figure married for decades to Hedy, Lena's best friend. When Hedy invites Lena to the resort's opening, the pair discover an all-female group of bacchanalians dancing and drumming on the beach. They join in, losing touch with their unresolved, everyday problems — and that's how tragedy unfolds. The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex By Melissa FebosKnopf: 288 pages, $29(June 3) Febos responds to the question 'What do women want?' with conviction: Women, like everyone else, want pleasure. When she turned 35 and ended a relationship, Febos eschewed her familiar, fall-back comforts of sexual intimacy and instead embraced solitude and celibacy. She discovered that other forms of pleasure — intellectual, sensual and spiritual — were just as meaningful to her as romantic or sexual experiences. How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir By Molly Jong-FastViking: 256 pages, $28(June 3) In 2023, Erica Jong's 'Fear of Flying' turned 50. The same year, Jong was diagnosed with dementia, and her daughter turned into her caregiver. Jong-Fast, an acclaimed journalist, was also faced with her husband's cancer diagnosis and her stepfather's worsening Parkinson's disease. In the tradition of the finest memoir writing, the author spares no one, herself least of all, as she untangles the bad from the good while still allowing for some tricky knots. I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir By Hala AlyanAvid Reader Press: 272 pages, $29(June 3) An award-winning Palestinian American writer tackles subjects including home, displacement and gestation in this lyrical memoir that explores the trauma of fractured identity. When Alyan ('Salt Houses') finally becomes pregnant via surrogate, after experiencing five miscarriages, she tries to forge a sense of motherhood as her husband leaves to 'clear his head.' The memoir's shifting timeline mirrors the author's own sense of destabilization. The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Female Concentration Camp By Lynne OlsonRandom House: 384 pages, $35(June 3) Olson's latest centers on four members of the French Resistance — Germaine Tillion, Anise Girard, Geneviève de Gaulle (niece of Charles de Gaulle) and Jacqueline d'Alincourt — all imprisoned in Germany during World War II. Their deep friendship, a source of emotional sustenance, helped them defy the enemy and document atrocities. All survived, forging a sisterhood that endured and resulted in lifelong activism. The Very Heart of It: New York Diaries, 1983-1994 By Thomas MallonKnopf: 592 pages, $40(June 3) Mallon, a distinguished man of letters, moved to Manhattan at 32, holding a PhD from Harvard and a dissertation that became his acclaimed 1984 book, 'A Book of One's Own.' Mallon was openly gay and his diaries capture the atmosphere of a city and community reeling from the AIDS crisis amid the material optimism of Reagan-era America. His writing stands out for its honesty and authenticity, offering a vivid, personal chronicle of a transformative era.
