Susan Choi: Flashlight

The new novel from Susan Choi, multi-award-winning writer including the National Book Award and a Lambda Literary Award, is a sweeping, international family drama that was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. Flashlight, described by The Guardian as a return to the great American novel of the 20th century, beguiled readers for its examination of absence and silence in a small family rocked by the assumed death of Louisa’s father.

Join Susan as she discusses relationships and alienation in her new novel, in conversation with Beejay Silcox.

Susan Choi

Susan Choi is the author most recently of Flashlight, shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award and named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Economist, The Financial Times, The New Yorker, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, among others. Her previous novels are The Foreign Student, American Woman, A Person of Interest, My Education and Trust Exercise, which received the 2019 National Book Award for fiction.

Beejay Silcox

Beejay Silcox is a book critic. Her work appears in high-profile publications across three continents, and is renowned for its resolute (some might say, foolhardy) honesty. In addition to her literary commentary, Beejay works as a professional reader: she’s an interviewer, prize judge, festival programmer, editor and educator. And she has stories to tell. Beejay eloped to Las Vegas, escaped from quicksand and once had to be rescued – unironically – from a picnic at Hanging Rock.