Staff Pick
Reading Susan Choi’s novel is like being on a tightrope, with several abrupt shifts that threaten to throw everything off balance, but when you make it to the end you’ll see that you’ve just read one of the most audacious and timely novels of the year. Recommended By Keith M., Powells.com
What an odd story Susan Choi serves up in her latest novel about a performing arts school and its svengali, the theatre teacher. Yes, "theatre"; don't be a dolt and use "theater." Sarah and David have the kind of love story that often occurs in high school, but with the audience of their co-students, and the Machiavellian insertion of Mr. Kingley's interference, it's a disaster. When that bit is established, hold on tight, because this novel goes completely off the rails, and Choi has done something either wholly insane or completely brilliant — you'll have to decide this one on your own. With commentary on male/female relationships, artistic sensibilities, desire and loathing, deceit and, well... trust, Trust Exercise is a one-of-a-kind book that will, if nothing else, force you to reconsider your definition of a novel. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"Enlists your heart as well as your mind....Packed with wild moments of grace and fear and abandon."
The New York Times
"Perhaps the best [novel] this year."
New York Magazine
"Intelligent and layered....Dramatic and memorable."
The New Yorker
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving "Brotherhood of the Arts," two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed — or untoyed with — by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school's walls--until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true — though it's not false, either. It takes until the book's stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place — revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.
Review
"Superb, powerful...Choi's themes — among them the long reverberations of adolescent experience, the complexities of consent and coercion, and the inherent unreliability of narratives — are timeless and resonant. Fiercely intelligent, impeccably written, and observed with searing insight, this novel is destined to be a classic."
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"What begins as the story of obsessive first love between drama students at a competitive performing arts high school in the early 1980s twists into something much darker in Choi's singular new novel...an effective interrogation of memory, the impossible gulf between accuracy and the stories we tell....The writing (exquisite) and the observations (cuttingly accurate) make Choi's latest both wrenching and one-of-a-kind. Never sentimental; always thrillingly alive."
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"A feat....[Trust Exercise] is bold....There is innuendo and insinuation and a hint of sinister....In the end, there's no shortage of insight in this novel. Or pathos."
Bookforum
Review
"Perhaps the best [novel] this year....[Trust Exercise] begins as an enthralling tale of teenage romance and then turns into a meticulously plotted interrogation of the state of the novel itself....Read it once for pleasure, and then again to turn up all the brilliant Easter eggs."
Vulture
Synopsis
"Enlists your heart as well as your mind. . . . Packed with wild moments of grace and fear and abandon."
--The New York Times
"Book groups, meet your next selection."
--NPR
" Choi is] a master of emotional pacing. . . . You won't be disappointed."
--The Washington Post
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving "Brotherhood of the Arts," two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed--or untoyed with--by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school's walls--until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true--though it's not false, either. It takes until the book's stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place--revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.
Synopsis
"Electrifying" (People) * "Masterly" (The Guardian) * "Dramatic and memorable" (The New Yorker) * "Magic" (TIME) * Ingenious" (The Financial Times) * "A gonzo literary performance" (Entertainment Weekly) * "Rare and splendid" (The Boston Globe) * "Remarkable" (USA Today) * "Delicious" (The New York Times) * "Book groups, meet your next selection" (NPR)
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving "Brotherhood of the Arts," two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed--or untoyed with--by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school's walls--until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true--though it's not false, either. It takes until the book's stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place--revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.
About the Author
Susan Choi is the author of the novels My Education, A Person of Interest, American Woman, and The Foreign Student. Her work has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award and the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction. With David Remnick, she co-edited Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. She's received NEA and Guggenheim Foundation fellowships. She lives in Brooklyn.