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Susan Choi’s 'Flashlight' Charts Displacement and Trauma Across Generations

Drawing on personal history through a fractured timeline, Choi examines how a father’s disappearance reverberates through a Korean-American family.

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Susan Choi, whose previous novel, “Trust Exercise,” won the National Book Award,, is the author most recently of “Flashlight.” (Photo credit: Paul Myers / Courtesy of FSG)

Overview

  • The novel spans Serk’s World War II-era childhood under Japanese rule through Louisa’s years as a college student in Europe and mother in Los Angeles.
  • Serk’s unexplained disappearance from a Japanese beach in 1978 sets Louisa on a journey defined by displacement, silence and enduring questions.
  • Choi integrates her own family history by depicting her grandfather’s controversial advocacy under Japanese occupation alongside North Korea’s covert abduction operations.
  • The narrative’s fractured timeline and intimate psychological portraits reflect the characters’ dislocation and generational trauma.
  • Events supporting the novel’s June release include a June 6 presentation at Skylight Books featuring Viet Thanh Nguyen.