Flashlight

Flashlight by Susan Choi From Pulitzer Prize Winner Susan Choi — A Literary Family Mystery Illuminating the Shadows of Memory, Identity, and Disappearance How do you hold on to someone who vanished in the dark? One fateful night on a Japanese beach, ten-year-old Louisa walks beside her father, who carries a flashlight—and who, by morning, is gone. She survives. He disappears. What begins as a mysterious vanishing becomes a haunting puzzle that unravels across decades, cultures, and generations. In Flashlight, Susan Choi—award-winning author of Trust Exercise—delivers a gripping and emotionally resonant novel about a fractured family still reeling from a single, traumatic night. Told in richly layered chapters that shift perspectives and peel back hidden truths, the story explores the lifelong impact of loss, identity, and secrets left untold. Louisa’s father, Serk, a Korean man born in postwar Japan, carries a legacy of dislocation and disconnection. Her American mother, Anne, has sev