Synopses & Reviews
With its propulsive drive, vividly realized characters, and profound observations about soul and society, Pulitzer Prize-finalist Susan Choi's latest novel is as thrilling as it is lyrical, and confirms her place as one of the most important novelists chronicling the American experience. Intricately plotted and psychologically acute,
A Person of Interest exposes the fault lines of paranoia and dread that have fractured American life and asks how far one man must go to escape his regrets. Professor Lee, an Asian-born mathematician near retirement age would seem the last person to attract the attention of FBI agents. Yet after a colleague becomes the latest victim of a serial bomber, Lee must endure the undermining power of suspicion and face the ghosts of his past.
Review
"A tour de force . . . universal and raw and irresistibly sympathetic."
-The Washington Post Book World
"With nuance, psychological acuity, and pitch-perfect writing, she tells the large-canvas story of paranoia in the age of terror and the smaller (but no less important) story of the cost of failed dreams and the damage we do to one another in the name of love."
-Los Angeles Times
"Read A Person of Interest for one of the best reasons to read any fiction: to transcend the limitations of our own lives, to find out what it's like to be someone else, to recognize unmistakable aspects of ourselves staring back at us from the portrait of a stranger."
-Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Intricately plotted and emotionally riveting, "A Person of Interest" asks how far one man can run from his past, and explores the impact of scrutiny and suspicion in an age of terror.
About the Author
The daughter of a Korean father and a Russian-Jewish mother, Susan Choi was born in Indiana and raised in Texas. She holds an undergraduate degree from Yale and an M.F.A. from Cornell. She is the author of three novels: The Foreign Student, winner of the Asian-American Literary Award; American Woman, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and A Person of Interest. She teaches at Princeton and lives in Brooklyn.