A Person of Interest: A Novel
by Susan Choi
List Price:
Our Price: $2.51
You Save: $12.49 (83%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Susan ChoiEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-01-27
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of A Person of Interest: A Novel
Book Review: A Steady Build of Interest
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a good book with a terrific ending, but it does require some persistence at first. The protagonist, Lee, a sixty-something professor of mathematics at some Midwestern college, is reclusive and not immediately likeable. Indeed when a bomb goes off in the next-door office of a younger and more popular colleague, his first unthinking response is gratification. Shocked by the extent of his own envy, naturally shy, and suspicious of the contemporary process of institutional grief management, he distances himself from his colleagues in his reactions to the tragedy over the next few days. Although Lee has lived in America since emigrating from some unspecified Asian country in his twenties, these responses harden his neighbors' perception of him as a stranger to mid-American values. He attracts the notice of the FBI and, partly as a result of some unwise answers to early questioning, is declared to be a "Person of Interest" in the investigation.
The term and situation carry echoes of real-life cases (anthrax, Los Alamos, the Unabomber) and the book cover leads one to expect some kind of political thriller. But this is a novel driven by character rather than plot. Susan Choi turns away almost immediately from the sensational, taking time to build up Lee's past very thoroughly, including his rivalries in graduate school, his two failed marriages, and his distance from his grown daughter. Choi's dense but perceptive writing reminds me of Russell Banks, Richard Powers, or (as others have pointed out) Don De Lillo. It is slow, but it pays off. By the time the storm of notoriety breaks around him over halfway through the book, we may not like Lee all that much more, but we begin to understand him and to suspect that his paranoia may not be all of his own making.
In the last third of the book, Susan Choi suddenly abandons Lee to concentrate on Mark, an entirely new character whose connection with the rest of the story is not immediately apparent. So far from breaking the momentum, this diversion has the effect of moving the book into overdrive. For Mark is an attractive character, an outdoorsman, self-sufficient, another loner but one who seems ready to come in from the cold. And then there is the gradually-unrolling mystery of why the author included him at all. By the time Choi returns to Lee some 40 pages later, the whole atmosphere of the book has changed. The action -- yes, action -- now moves quickly forward towards a decisive conclusion, offering Lee a kind of personal redemption. And Choi's diversion proves not to have been a diversion at all, but a harbinger of positive change that may transform Lee also. It is a magnificent feat of drawing the threads together that is only possible because of the care with which Choi had spun them earlier. Now her title has two meanings: Lee was for a time a "person of interest" to the police, yes, but against all expectations, he has grown into a person of even greater interest to the reader. [4.5 stars]
Literary Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Literary Books
Island (Perennial Classics)by Aldous Huxley
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2002-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Angelsby Marian Keyes
William Morrow; Published: 2002-05-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.10
Price in other shops:
A Tree Grows in Brooklynby Betty Smith
Harper; Published: 2001-11-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.86
Price in other shops:
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptationby Paulo Coelho
Harper; Published: 2006-07-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops:
Boonville: A Novelby Robert Mailer Anderson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.95
Price in other shops:
Carameloby Sandra Cisneros
HarperAudio; Published: 2002-10-01; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $4.60
Price in other shops:
Headhunterby Timothy Findley
PERENNIAL PUBLICATIONS; Paperback; Book
The Crimson Petal And The Whiteby Michel Faber
Harcourt, Inc./Harvest; Published: 2003; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.50
Great Expectationsby Charles Dickens
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1979-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
This Side of Paradiseby Fitzgerald
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1988-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.95
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
A Gesture Life: A Novelby Chang-rae Lee
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2000-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.93
Price in other shops:
The Plot Against Americaby Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 2005-09-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.91
Price in other shops:
Unaccustomed Earth: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)by Jhumpa Lahiri
Vintage; Published: 2009-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.24
Price in other shops:
The Lovely Bonesby Alice Sebold
Back Bay Books; Published: 2009-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.89
Price in other shops:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Waoby Junot Diaz
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2008-09-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Zone One: A Novelby Colson Whitehead
Doubleday; Published: 2011-10-18; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.50
Price in other shops:
The Foreign Student: A Novelby Susan Choi
Harper Perennial; Published: 1999-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops:
Native Speakerby Chang-rae Lee
Riverhead Trade; Published: 1996-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.93
Price in other shops:
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Philby George Saunders
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2005-09-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.89
Price in other shops:
The Emperor's Children (Vintage)by Claire Messud
Vintage; Published: 2007-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.70
Price in other shops: