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A Novel
by Susan Choi
Book Reviewed by:Pulitzer finalist Susan Choi's multi-part, narrative-upending novel.
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, 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.
National Book Awards
2019
Trust Exercise's impressiveness lies in its inability to be defined. It's about the stories women tell themselves to explain their difficult relationships and encounters with men. It's about the intensity of being a teenager, and the extreme depth of emotional experience that occurs without an understanding of what it means to who you are and who you will become. Susan Choi's latest release is a masterful, introspective look at the impact high school has on shaping, not only the person you are, but the narratives you construct...continued
Full Review
(578 words)
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(Reviewed by Meara Conner).
A large part of the later chapters of Susan Choi's Trust Exercise revolves around the publishing of a female narrative of past sexual assault, forcing other characters in the story to reckon with their own complicity in the event (or lack thereof). The empowerment of survivors telling of their own stories is a concept that today's public is very familiar with – the #MeToo movement has garnered significant attention in the past several years because it provides survivors with a safe platform from which to bring their narratives to light and holds perpetrators of their assaults accountable in a public space.
As the movement has gained traction in the public sphere, the tenets of #MeToo have become more obviously noticeable in today's...
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An ingenious, morally complex exploration of how our youthful entanglements, cruelties, and traumas shape the rest of our lives. Choi's writing is dazzling in its control and precision; this witty, sharp, unsettling novel grabs you and won't let you go.
