Why Flashlight's Susan Choi can't stop writing about her dad
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Claire Nicholls here, and on the book show today, let's start at sunset on a beach in Japan with Susan Choi and Flashlight.
Louisa and her father are making their way down the breakwater, each careful step on the heaved granite blocks, one step farther from shore. Her mother is not even on the shore, for example, seated smiling on the sand. Her mother is shut inside the small, almost waterfront house they're renting, most likely in bed. All summer, Louisa has played in the waves by herself because her mother isn't well, and her father is unvaryingly dressed in a jacket and slacks. But tonight, he has finally agreed to walk the breakwater with her. She's asked every day since they first arrived. Spray from the waves, sometimes lands on the rocks, and so he has carefully rolled up the cuffs of his slacks. He still wears his hard polished shoes.
In one hand, he holds a flashlight, which is not necessary. In the other hand, he holds Louisa's hand, which is also not necessary. She tolerates this out of kindness.
That is the first page of Flashlight, the Booker shortlisted novel by the American writer Susan Choi. The book follows Louisa and her parents, her Korean dad, Cirque, her American mother, Anne, before and after this night on the beach when everything changes. I met Susan Choi on Wadundi Land in WA at the Margaret River Readers and Writers Festival.
Thank you.
That's great. Where are Louisa and Cirque? They're going for this walk.
Where are they? Yeah, they're in a small town on the coast of Japan. It's the late 1970s. They're on, this matters a little bit, they're on the, what you would call either the northern or the westward coast of Japan. And Louisa's father has just finished up doing some visiting teaching at a university in Japan. Her mother has not been feeling well, so they've taken a little house on the beach just for what's supposed to be the brief remainder of their time in Japan, to have a little relaxing, pleasant rest. And they wouldn't normally get this close to the water, right? Well, Cirque wouldn't. Well, he's an extremely, extremely overprotective father who's always expecting something horrible to happen.
He's probably the kind of father who doesn't let Louisa have a hot dog at a friend's birthday party because of the preservatives. That's not in the book, but I'm actually thinking that would be like him.
What inspired Susan Choi to write about her father in Flashlight?
So he's very, very cautious. He's very overprotective of her. He is, you know, white knuckling it when she herself swims in the water. So he's always being very, very watchful.
After this moment, Louisa is unconscious and Cirque is gone. Is gone. What happened? That's the question of the story. Where did this scene come from?
I knew that I wanted to write a book about a family to whom an awful thing happens. And so this scene came to me really early, actually, in the writing of the book, even before I totally reconciled myself to the plot that I was dancing around it myself, thinking like, oh, can you really do this? I felt unsure I could get away with it.
And clearly she did. Cirque is a Japanese-born Korean. So at the end of World War II, in 1945, my research says there are about two million ethnic Koreans living in Japan. Can you explain why there were so many Koreans in Japan and what they were doing there?
Yeah. Japan, the empire of Japan, had been very aggressively expanding its reach. And Japan had a war with Russia. They expanded into China. Like those of you who are... knowledgeable about the Second World War, especially in the Pacific, will probably have like a certain amount of familiarity with a lot of this history.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:43
2
What inspired Susan Choi to write about her father in Flashlight?
3:43–10:43
3
How does Susan Choi describe the setting of Flashlight?
10:43–22:22
4
What historical context is important for understanding the characters in Flashlight?
22:22–32:22
5
How does Susan Choi's personal heritage influence her writing?
32:22–40:52
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Book Show
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