Flashlight - by Susan Choi

Book Synopsis

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker - Time - New York - The Washington Post - NPR - Los Angeles Times - The Guardian - Vanity Fair - Town & Country - Oprah Daily - Financial Times - The Economist - Book Riot - Kirkus Reviews - Electric Literature - PEN America - The Chicago Public Library

"EXPLOSIVE." (The New York Times Book Review) - "GORGEOUS." (New York) - "SHOCKING." (NPR) - "DEVASTATING." (The Washington Post) - "ASTONISHING." (The Atlantic) - "MARVELOUS." (NBC's Weekend Today in New York)

One of President Obama's Favorite Books of 2025

Short-listed for the Booker Prize - Long-listed for the National Book Award - Long-listed for the Andrew Carnegie Medal

A TeaTime and Get Lit Book Club Pick

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 family. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of catastrophe. 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?

A monumental new novel from the National Book Award winner Susan Choi, Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heart-gripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.

Review Quotes

"A major world writer . . . Choi is in thrilling command."
--Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review"

"[Choi's] best novel yet."
--Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune

"Outstanding . . . Its dogged stumbling toward truth is touching and thrilling, often both at once . . . [A] major American novel."
--Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"[A] mystery kicks off Flashlight, propelling the plot forward, backward and sideways . . . [Choi is] a twenty-first-century Émile Zola . . . The novel ranks among her best work."
--Hamilton Cain, Los Angeles Times

"[Flashlight] will leave readers guessing until (almost) the very end . . . A sweeping, unsettling portrait of one family caught in the throes of change and torn apart by tragedy."
--Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle

"Perfect for an airplane. A long, quality, good beach read."
--John Searles, the Today show

"Engrossing . . . A smart, beautifully written novel about what can be lost when you never really know what you had."
--Town & Country

"Will make your head spin in the best way."
--Dakota Johnson, TeaTime Book Club, on Instagram

"A hugely ambitious book . . . with insight into shocking, real-life events that deserve the attention Choi brings to them."
--Chris Hewitt, The Minnesota Star Tribune

"Flashlight . . . has the wide-legged feel of turn-of-the-century fiction: domestically sprawling, geopolitically bold . . . A truth-rattling rupture . . . [It] is all kinds of big: capacious of intent and scope and language and swagger."
--Beejay Silcox, The Guardian

"Expansive . . . Flashlight explores the history and mysteries of one family . . . [Their] personal trajectories are interwoven with those of global politics in a way that feels both wrenchingly tragic and entirely credible."
--The New Yorker

"A propulsive story about family secrets and displacement."
--Wadzanai Mhute, The Boston Globe

"Choi masterfully delivers a story that feels both deeply personal and profoundly moving. Taking the time to sink into Flashlight's bold exploration of grief, identity, and survival will absolutely be worth the investment."
--Allison Fabian Derfner, Goop

"[Flashlight] will sustain you through a week at the beach--no need to pack any others."
--Emily Gould, New York's "Book Gossip" newsletter

"A great big ambitious novel . . . Franzen-like . . . Rooted in intense historical research but never dry, I'm ready to declare that Flashlight is that elusive type of book that so many readers I know are always looking for: a big fat novel to get lost in."
--Maris Kreizman, The Maris Review

"Magnificent . . . An ode to the difficult choices we make to build a life and the ways in which they all can come falling down in a moment."
--Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books

"At once a domestic novel and a spy thriller . . . Flashlight is a novel in which the past will not be past."
--Angelo Hernandez Sias, Bookforum

"The epic history of a fractured American family . . . Choi's prose shines with poetry and intelligence."
--Jasmine Vojdani, New York

"A captivating examination of family and belonging."
--E! News

"Aching, beautiful, utterly compelling."
--Dan Sheehan, Literary Hub

"A rich generational saga that teems with intelligence, curiosity and, in terms of reading, sheer pleasure."
--Catherine Taylor, Financial Times

"[Choi's] most ambitious effort yet."
--Emma Specter, Vogue

"[Flashlight] creeps up on you, so you don't quite register how deeply it's gotten its hooks in you until days later, when you're still thinking about it."
--Constance Grady, Vox

"A sweeping, multilayered story that moves through decades and across the globe . . . The masterful Flashlight . . . offers a profound look at family ties, perspective, and memory."
--Real Simple

"A writer at the top of her game."
--Emily Bowles, Library Journal

"[Flashlight] pushes the boundaries of family, ethnicity, society, country, and history . . . [Choi] brilliantly shines the titular flashlight on each of her characters."
--Terry Hong, Booklist (starred review)

"Choi is a writer you can trust to make the journey worthwhile . . . This aptly titled novel illuminates dark passages both fictional and real."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A tale of espionage and global conflict, and the heartrending ways in which world struggles play out in individual lives."
--Jennifer M. Brown, Shelf Awareness

"This gripping story of a family in crisis is tough to shake."
--Publishers Weekly

"Ferociously smart and full of surprises, Flashlight is thrilling to the last."
--Eleanor Catton, author of Birnam Wood

"A brilliant feat of storytelling . . . Flashlight 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."
--Angie Kim, author of Happiness Falls

"Instantly bewitching . . . Susan Choi's fictional investigation reveals a writer at the height of her spectacular powers."
--Jennifer Egan, author of The Candy House

"I devoured Flashlight . . . The plot builds like a symphony rising to a crescendo, full of surprise and wonder . . . Astonishing."
--Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy and Daughters of the Bamboo Grove

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.