Susan Choi’s Big Novel of History

Susan Choi’s characters are at their best when unhinged. Undone by love, lust, revenge, torture, paranoia, mad hope, hopelessness—this is when they really come to life. Choi’s novels are also at their best in the midst of all of this emotional chaos. Her plots can be melodramatic, plucking these characters seemingly out of nowhere and putting them in the right circumstances to blossom into their maddest selves, but this also gives her novels a certain bravado and, at times, an unexpected grandeur.