Flashlight

Name: Flashlight
Author: Susan Choi
ISBN: 9780374616373

Susan Choi

awards won

score

Flashlight

Susan Choi

awards won

score

See the full ranking

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?

Buy this book at Amazon

Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Year: 2025
ISBN-13: 9780374616373
Genre: FictionCrime & Thriller
Topics: Family secrets and estrangementGrief and lossIdentity and displacement across cultures