Synopsis
A Most Anticipated Book of the Year: Time, The Washington Post, and Literary Hub
A novel tracing a father's disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.
One night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He's carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later Louisa is found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old.
In chapters that shift from one member to the next, turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Susan Choi's Flashlight chases the shockwaves of one family's catastrophe. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, an ethnic Korean born and raised in Japan, lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to the DPRK. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne's illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences.
What really happened to Louisa's father? Why did he take Louisa and her mother to Japan just before he disappeared? And how can we love, or make sense of our lives, when there's so much we can't see?
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About the Author
Susan Choi is the author of Trust Exercise, which received the National Book Award for fiction, as well as the novels The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, and My Education. She is a recipient of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, a Lambda Literary award, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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Flashlight: A Novel
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025
ISBN 10: 037461637X
ISBN 13: 9780374616373
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Flashlight
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ISBN 10: 037461637X
ISBN 13: 9780374616373
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Flashlight: A Novel
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ISBN 10: 037461637X
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Flashlight
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Flashlight: A Novel
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Flashlight
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025
ISBN 10: 037461637X
ISBN 13: 9780374616373
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Flashlight (Hardcover)
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ISBN 10: 037461637X
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Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. Long-listed for the Booker Prize"The first major American novel to be published this year." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal"Gorgeous . . . Almost impossibly heartbreaking." --Sam Worley, New York MagazineA Must-Read: The New York Times, New York Magazine, Time, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The Chicago Review of Books, Forbes, Literary Hub, and Town & Country "A major world writer . . . Choi is in thrilling command." Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Devastating." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post"Ranks among her best work." --Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles TimesA Dakota Johnson X TeaTime Book Club Pick A novel tracing a father's disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne's illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa's father? Shifting perspectives across time and character and turning back again and again to that night by the sea, Flashlight chases the shock waves of one family's catastrophe, even as they are swept up in the invisible currents of history. A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heartgripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see. "A thrilling, globe-spanning novel on memory, identity, and what it means to be in a family (and to lose one), from the award-winning author of Trust Exercise"-- Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780374616373