Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. Susan Choi's previous book,

Trust Exercise, was this teen drama about high school theater students that has a middle of the book,

I don't know, I don't want to call it a twist, really, but it upends the psychology of the book.

In comparison, her latest novel, Flashlight, is relatively straightforward, but no less

thought-provoking. It's one of these big stories about a family across decades, and it involves

history and war and secrets and borders. There's a lot going on. And so it makes sense that when

NPR Scott Simon asks how Choi kept track of it all, she says she just put everything in chronological order.

That's ahead.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground

bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Susan Choi's new novel opens in mystery and tragedy.

Luisa, 10-year-old girl, and her father, Sirk, walk along a beach in Japan.

He carries a flashlight.

We next see Louisa when she is washed up by the tide struggling to breathe.

The father is gone.

He couldn't swim.

What happened? What will unfold next to the happened? What will unfold next to the family? And what might we miss in our own life stories? Flashlight is Susan Choi's novel. And Susan Choi, a National Book Award winner, who is taught creative writing at Yale, joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks so much for having me.

Help us understand all that weighs on Louisa to awake to be alive, but also to have suffered a profound loss and a persisting question.

...