Flashlight
Susan Choi
Sometimes I feel I’ve come to a book at exactly the right moment. My encounter with Flashlight was one such fortuitous meeting – it was precisely the right novel for me to be reading these past few days. I’ve had more free time that I’ve had in a while and it was the kind of book that rewarded long stints of page turning; I found it easy to immerse myself in it (I even cried a little at the end) and it made my lazy afternoons on the sofa a delight.
It tells the tale of a family, spanning the father’s entire lifetime, and explores the complex relationships that exist between them as a result of the secrets each one keeps. I loved the way it captured the inner lives of these characters and the many ambivalences that they feel; one description that struck me as especially pleasing explained that “crossing from ignorance to recognition required just the one step – yet she remained with a foot in the old territory, perhaps even an eye on each side of the line. It was possible to think, in the same dumbstruck exhalation, both Of course and Impossible”.
At the same time, although without being ostentatiously so, this is a book about global politics. It is set in Japan, the US, the DPRK and South Korea and, through its characters, it explores a startling facet of history about which I previously knew little; the sense that I was learning something new added yet further to my reading satisfaction.
Most satisfyingly, at the centre of the novel, there is a mystery which I certainly found compelling. The answer to the riddle it poses at its outset is extraordinary in the best possible way – almost unbelievable, yet quite obviously based in fact. In short, this book surprised, moved and thrilled me – I’d recommend it highly.
Leave a comment