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The Foreign Student: A Novel Paperback – September 21, 2004
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"This wonderful hybrid of a novel--a love story, a war story, a novel of manners--introduces a writer of enchanting gifts, a beautiful heart wedded to a beautiful imagination. How else does Susan Choi so fully inhabit characters from disparate backgrounds, with such brilliant wit and insight? The Foreign Student stirs up great and lovely emotions." — Francisco Goldman, author of The Ordinary Seaman
The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past. Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation. Moving between the American South and South Korea, between an adolescent girl's sexual awakening and a young man's nightmarish memories of war, The Foreign Student is a powerful and emotionally gripping work of fiction.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateSeptember 21, 2004
- Dimensions7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
- ISBN-100060929278
- ISBN-13978-0060929275
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A novel of secrets that unfold like the leaves on an artichoke. The Foreign Student is a mosaic of betrayal in peace and war that marks the debut of a gifted young novelist wise beyond her years.” — John Gregory Dunne
“A luminous and accomplished first novel . . . that resonates with compassion-turned-ardor and an addictive melancholy vibrating beneath every line.” — Houston Chronicle
“A powerful and involving book....[written in] a style that can accommodate both the broad forces of history and the most intimate of lives.” — Lamar Herrin, author of The Lies Boys Tell
“A young war-shocked Korean man falls for a comely southern belle with secrets of her own in Susan Choi’s elegantly wrought first novel, The Foreign Student.” — Vanity Fair
“An accomplished, perceptive novel, which invites rereading and lingers in the reader’s memory.” — Booklist
“An auspicious debut novel . . . epic in its harrowing accounts of war and intimate in its charged descriptions of the unlikely love affair at its center.” — The New Yorker
“Choi’s descriptions are strange and powerful....The Foreign Student‘s plot is carefully orchestrated and camera-ready. It takes a war, an epistolary betrayal, and a natural disaster to effect a kiss.” — New York magazine
“First-time novelist Susan Choi writes gracefully, insightfully and with striking maturity.” — Time
“Richly detailed. . . . Moving from the present to the past, from America to Korea, Choi brings hundreds of small scenes to life.” — New York Times Book Review
“Susan Choi has written a first novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness. Her prose has the feel of a handmade artifact, oddly bumpy at times and startlingly expressive.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Two very unlikely worlds intersect in The Foreign Student, war-ravaged Korea and the genteel culture of Sewanee, Tennessee. In gracious prose, Susan Choi renders their cruelties, their lies, and their beauty.” — Arthur Golden, author of Memories of A Geisha
From the Back Cover
Highly acclaimed by critics, The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past. Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation. Moving between the American South and South Korea, between an adolescent girl's sexual awakening and a young man's nightmarish memories of war, The Foreign Student is a powerful and emotionally gripping work of fiction.
About the Author
Susan Choi was born in Indiana and grew up in Texas. Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Discover Great New Writers Award at Barnes & Noble. With David Remnick, she edited an anthology of fiction entitled Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Foreign Student
By Choi, SusanPerennial
Copyright © 2004 Susan ChoiAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060929278
1955
The mountain at night was pitch dark. The twin beams from the headlamps would advance a few feet and be annihilated, and only the motion of the bus striving upward indicated that you were not at sea, and only the dispersion of stars in the sky marked off what lay around you as a mass and not an infinite void. His first time up this road from Nashville the bus had put him off in the middle of nowhere and nothing and its tail lights winked out around a bend before the driver thought twice and backed up. The small lights reappeared. When the bus was alongside again the door swung open and the driver pointed into the featureless blackness. "That way," he said. Chuck had still been standing at the side of the road with his suitcase hanging from one hand and his overcoat over one arm, and this was the petrified figure that Mrs. Reston, the vice vice chancellor's housekeeper, found at the door to the vice vice chancellor's house forty-five minutes later. You would not have known that the motionless person had just walked two miles straight uphill with a steady and terrified step and only the slight paleness of the gravel reflecting the stars to direct him. To Mrs. Reston he seemed to have dropped into the pool of porch light from outer space. She showed him inside and unclamped the hand from the suitcase's handle and unbent the arm from beneath the drape of the overcoat, and gave him some tea in the kitchen.
Mrs. Reston was annoyed with the bus driver for not having explained things more clearly. It would seem like a failure of hospitality, in her opinion, unless a person knew that the gravel drive up to the vice vice chancellor's was too steep and shifty a purchase for the lumbering bus and even most cars. They'd go skittering right off the edge. As far as hospitality went, she was ready. She had been ready for his arrival for days and had been waiting with a pot of tea and her embroidery basket and a pile of Silver Screen back issues for hours.
She gave him his tea in the kitchen, in order to impart the idea that he was not a guest, but a boy being welcomed home. This tactic, based on years of experience with free-floating, frightened young men, fell securely within the realm of which she was the mistress, and she would have done it even if the vice vice chancellor had not been away for the weekend. But she was glad that he was. "You must be tired after such a long trip," she said. "I'm going to keep you down here a quick minute because I've been so anxious to meet you, but then I'll take you right up to the guest room. There's the one nice thing about the vice vice chancellor's being away. You can sleep late. Otherwise I'm very sorry he's gone. Oh, my goodness, you look so tired! Are you going to perish?"
He shook his head and smiled. He was somehow not capable of speech.
"How many hours was your trip?"
He took a long time to answer this question, so long that although she was never quick to judge, and so unflaggingly optimistic in all situations that the vice vice chancellor had once complained to her about it, the horrible thought crossed her mind that he didn't speak English at all, that he had faked his letters the way some boys faked their grades. And then he said, in a voice that snagged on its own exhaustion, "Eighteen hours and--" He wanted to add something, to answer her kindness as well as her question. "And we stop to take fuel in Alaska."
"Alaska! First time in this country and you've already been to Alaska. I don't think I will ever see Alaska in my life. Was it beautiful?"
This did not seem the word. It had been a gloaming, purple and vast. Past the end of the world. But he didn't have these words, either. He nodded, and nodded again when she said, "You poor thing. Let me put you to bed."
It was a tidy but comfortable room, with a high bed and a lamp on the table that was already lit. Mrs. Reston turned the bed down and patted it briskly. He stood helplessly by. All the distance he'd plowed through, and her one simple gesture disabled him. He followed her back to the door.
"Sleep late," she said, turning away.
He shut the door after her, and looked down at the knob. Then he opened and shut and reopened it. She was already far down the hall.
"Excuse," he called.
"Yes dear?"
"If I have to lock." He twisted the knob.
"But you don't. It's all right. We don't lock our doors here."
"Ah. Thank you."
He shut the door again and sat on the bed. Then he lay back on top of the covers, and pushed off his shoes with his toes. The shoes were too large, like the suit and the coat.
After a while he sat up, undid the knots in his shoelaces, and set the shoes beside each other on the floor. He lay down again and tried to find sleep. The thought of the door filled him with shame, because he could not accept the lack of precaution as a sign that he was safe.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Foreign Studentby Choi, Susan Copyright © 2004 by Susan Choi. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial (September 21, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060929278
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060929275
- Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #743,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,113 in Asian American Literature & Fiction
- #36,040 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #76,870 in Contemporary Romance (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They appreciate the clear, cliche-free prose that keeps them hooked from start to finish. The story is described as fascinating, well-told, and spellbinding.
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"...The book's worth reading because her talent is evident, and the subject makes one think." Read more
"Wonderful book. Easy to read. I know the author's father and the book is loosely based on his life." Read more
"Book used for reading .." Read more
"...me a while to get into the writing style but once there, I thoroughly enjoyed the book." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate the clear prose free of cliches. The story is unpredictable and interesting, and the subject makes them think.
"...It was delicately written like poetry, each word leaving you thought provoked...." Read more
"...book's worth reading because her talent is evident, and the subject makes one think." Read more
"Wonderful book. Easy to read. I know the author's father and the book is loosely based on his life." Read more
"...and what unfolds is unpredictable and really interesting...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2014I typically don't want to read books by KA authors, especially when they write about the Korean war. It's hard to simply enjoy because of authenticity. However, this book haunted me, and I found myself completely spellbound. It was delicately written like poetry, each word leaving you thought provoked. I'm writing this review long after reading it, and I still remember the book, still remember feeling so moved. I highly recommend this book.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2008This is one of those novels that grabs one's attention from the beginning. I liked Choi's matter-of-fact way of explaining her characters, but I also found I couldn't get overly involved with them. It didn't matter to me which man Katherine ended up with (and it was clear she *was* going to end up with A Man); I was merely curious to find out. The book pulls its reader along almost urgently for about 2/3 of the way. Then, alas, it snags on characters' inner thoughts as Choi tortures language to be as thorough as possible, and, yet, somehow, the characters don't come into any sharper focus. She's got a lot of talent, but perhaps needed an editing hand with some of the later exposition passages in this book. The book's worth reading because her talent is evident, and the subject makes one think.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2018I really wanted to like this book, I truly did, but, when I started to read it, I just felt bored, and really out-of-touch with what the author was trying to portray. From what I understood from the book, the author touched on a young Korean man's brush with war in Korea during the 1950s, and the nightmarish memories that haunted him as he moved to the United States after the war was over. During his time in the United States, he met a white woman, that he eventually fell in love with, and ended up telling her of his time in Korea during the war. Although this was the main plotline, there were many other 'subplots' happening at the same time, some that I just didn't understand at all, and had no relation to the Korean man's plight, which most would see as PTSD. I also didn't enjoy the flow of this book, as I felt it jumped quickly from one subplot to the next, often leaving readers wondering what had just happened in the previous chapters. I did understand what the author's intention was in writing this book however, it just didn't come across the way in which it should have. If I had known the book would have been the way it was, I would have given it a miss.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2018Wonderful book. Easy to read. I know the author's father and the book is loosely based on his life.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2013This book tells the tale of Chang (Chuck), a twenty-five year-old Korean man, who relocates to Sewanee, TN as an exchange student in 1955. The narrative of how Chang (called "Chuck" by his his superior, an American working for the USIS in Seoul) gets to Sewanee is one tale. It is interwoven with that of Katherine, whose family comes to Sewanee from New Orleans to summer. The braiding together of these two stories is unlikely and I felt at sea for about the first quarter of the book. The novel then picks up steam, or gets the wind in its sails (choose your metaphor for forward motion) and what unfolds is unpredictable and really interesting. Chuck and Catherine are both loners, outsiders for different reasons, measured in their assessments of themselves, each other, and the small-college townfolk that surround them. When you finally read of their respective journeys (difficult in such different ways but which each predicate, for me, on the movement of their body through space and time--or history), do you pity them? To be sure, they do not pity each other, and the way they dance away from and around the mores of 1956 Sewanee (and some other, unpredictable locales) is interesting to watch. Choi keeps her characters front and center and sees them clearly. Her prose is similarly clear, admirably free of cliche.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2019Book used for reading ..
- Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2016Could not get into this story at all. Didn't make it past the first chapter. Dialogue was juvenile.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2012I'm 130 pages in and putting it down. Choi is a good writer and writes some great sentences, but this book is too analytical and detailed. I like the potential dynamic between the two protagonists, but going through the Korean and Katherine-history flashbacks done wore me out. Some of her word choices are just plain awkward too.
I personally like novels with a little more forward momentum. What's really frustrating is that when I went onto Amazon to look up Choi, I discovered that I had done the *same* thing with another of her books, "A Person of Interest." A good argument for using the Amazon phone app at the bookstore.
Top reviews from other countries
- Nivedita DhankharReviewed in India on August 14, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful read!
So, I just finished "The Foreign Student," and damn, it's a ride. Picture this: a Korean student in '50s America, trying to figure out the whole new-country-new-life thing. The author, Susan Choi, paints this crazy clear picture with her words – you're practically living in the story. You get the ups, the downs, the culture clashes, and a whole lotta love. The characters? Legit feel like your buddies. If you're down for a tale that's equal parts heartwarming and mind-bending, grab a copy. Choi's got this way of making you ponder life, love, and the wild journey in between. 📚❤️
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on May 28, 2019
3.0 out of 5 stars Author explores cultural difficulties faced by Korean immigrant into Southern US society.
Interesting topic, one learns much about Korean society and attitudes forged during wartime, although less about the cultural and social difficulties faced by immigrants in US society. In this her first novel she indicates considerable potential as a writer, despite a few stylistic weaknesses (no literary allusions, no ironic touches, little attention to sentence length and rhythm) and a jerky narrative development. Instead of attempting to get into the heads of different characters, always a problem for narrative development, one wishes she had have composed her story solely through the eyes of her protagonist Chang/Chuck (she alternates between the two names confusingly). But it was her first novel, and more recent efforts have proven her talent as a writer.