Don DeLillo is one of my all-time favorite fiction writers, and so I always notice when a contemporary writer gets given the DeLillo comparision. And sometimes I wonder why. DeLillo himself seems so varied--all out funny in White Noise, meditative and serious in Mao II, floaty and strange in The Body Artist, all inclusive in Underworld... but I think what critics mean when they pull out the DeLilloism is the author has taken on social issues of our contemporary world.
And this novel, which I much admired, is the story of a Korean scientist and professor who is suspected of being a Unabomber-type when his colleague gets blown up by a mail bomb. It's a combo (and I think I read this in an interview with Choi) of the suspicion that the Asian scientist at Los Alamos came under and the Unabomber story. And the connection to real life definitely adds weight to the fiction. But really it's interesting for the characterizations, and it's weighty for the level of psychological, human insight not because it has something to say about the American media, or about othering, or about the Unabomber. DeLillo (in Mao mode) would have had lots of narrative comment about all those issues, but Choi tells the story of this one guy and what it would be like to be a real live, flawed, and innocent person suddenly under suspicion. I appreciated that she felt free to use contemporary history, but didn't feel obligated to comment on it directly.
One of the most interesting choices she makes is to veer off nearly 2/3 of the way through the novel (maybe more) into the point of view (still third person limited, just not the protagonist we've been with for most of the novel) of an unexpected character. It's the kind of thing that is a violation of the fake rules of the fictional universe--set a pattern and stick to it (in layman's terms, don't all of a sudden change perspectives)--but as a reader I didn't mind at all for the simple reason that she kept the writing and the character super interesting. There was no dip in her level of execution so I gave her the benefit of the doubt--and in fact felt a little relieved to break from the claustrophobia of sticking with an interesting but maddening character. And the pay off is good because the choice of whose perspective she followed is so good--and so unexpected. Now this could backfire--readers are suspicious of the hand of the writer suddenly coming up through the page and showing itself--but she immersed the reader so quickly and so deeply in this character's perspective--the psychic distance is so close to him--that you don't have time to pull back and go, what just happened? You go with her. Or at least I did.
One other small thing, the main character is called by his last name throughout--even other characters call him by his last name--and this has a great distancing effect. He's the kind of guy that doesn't let other people in close and that choice reflects that very nicely.
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