Flashlight

A Novel

De: Susan Choi

Narrado por: Eunice Wong

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?

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Reseñas de la Crítica

<p>“<i>Flashlight </i>is instantly bewitching: a mysterious family tragedy whose solution reaches beyond psychology into geopolitics. Susan Choi’s fictional investigation reveals a writer at the height of her spectacular powers.” <br><b>—Jennifer Egan, author of <i>The Candy House</i></b><br><br>“In this superbly crafted book, the fraught geopolitics of family life—the official secrets, the acts of espionage, the diplomatic failures—are set against the intimacies, grievances, conflicting memories, and unmet needs of national allegiance. Ferociously smart and full of surprises, <i>Flashlight </i>is thrilling to the last.”<br><b>—Eleanor Catton, author of <i>Birnam Wood</i></b><br><br>“In a brilliant feat of storytelling, both intimate and sweeping, Susan Choi has created a profoundly moving epic that blends a tender family portrait with a haunting examination of the Korean diaspora. <i>Flashlight </i>is that rare novel that has everything I want in fiction: gorgeous writing, fascinating characters I fell in love with, an immersive, addictive story with an ending that made me gasp, then cry. I’m in awe.”<br><b>—Angie Kim, author of <i>Happiness Falls</i></b><br><br>“<i>Flashlight </i>is a sensitive familial portrait, rigorous in its scope and complexity of feeling. Susan Choi is a master of rendering relationships with utter particularity.”<br><b>—Raven Leilani, author of <i>Luster</i></b><br><br>“I devoured <i>Flashlight</i>. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down, and once I finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The plot builds like a symphony rising to a crescendo, full of surprise and wonder. The story is as astonishing as it is entirely plausible. Susan Choi clearly knows well the fraught geopolitics of Korea and Japan, and did her homework.”<br><b>—Barbara Demick, author of <i>Nothing to Envy</i> and <i>Daughters of the Bamboo Grove</i></b></p>

Best book I’ve read this year

Could not stop listening - get this book you won’t regret it. Unique compelling and harrowing story.

Well told and beautifully narrated

The story was incredibly interesting. I had no idea that people were disappeared like that.

Excellent story & narration

This is such an epic story. The narrator did an excellent job. I enjoyed this and I’ll think about it for a long time to come.

Painfully sad

Be ready for a difficult listen this is not an uplifting story though it ends on a positive note. It deals with the historical trauma imposed by regimes on citizens of the world.

Excellent

This is one of the best books of the year. It was such a pleasure to read a well-written, intelligent story with interesting, flawed characters.

Beautifully written!

The characters are so described in detail. Magnificent story! The middle sloes down a bit, but the ending is incredible!

Amazing

Never wanted the book to finish. The best storyline I have ever listened and I wish I have made the character in real life.

I liked the fact that the characters were not fully developed till the very end

It was hard for me to follow with the introduction of so many different Asian names

Beautiful language

Confusing storyline, hard to follow, characters unlikable, did not like narrator, ending disappointing, some of the writing is beautiful

Sprawling, and unexpected

A wonderful story, maybe too much rumination at times, but beautiful details and interesting arc. Brings up themes of family, belonging, memory, history, and thing that do not tie up into a neat bow.