Flashlight

A thrilling, globe-spanning novel that mines questions of memory, language, identity, and family, Flashlight is a sweeping masterpiece illuminating the hidden corners of twentieth century history and their profound effects on individual lives.

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean émigré, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes up hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, likely drowned.

The disappearance of Louisa’s father shatters their small family unit, and she and her American mother Anne return to the US profoundly changed. This traumatic event reverberates across time and space, as we follow mother and daughter trying to go on with their lives, while the mystery of what really happened to Serk that night slowly unravels.

Moving between the post-war Korean immigrant community in Japan, to suburban America, and the North Korean regime, this is the astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of twentieth century history.