Readers place themselves in this gifted author’s hands, only to be yanked in unexpected directions
David are theatre students at a performing-arts high school, preparing for “exceptional lives”. From the first page of Susan Choi’s twisting novel, they are connected by a hot wire of desire. The stage seems set for a classic tale of young love. But nothing is as it seems in this artistic hothouse. Immediately, the story shifts: their teacher, Mr Kingsley, emerges as a Pied Piper, seductive and dangerous.“Of the Trust Exercises there were seemingly infinite variations,” Ms Choi writes.
Ms Choi’s novels have won praise for their blend of exceptional prose and propulsive storytelling. Her previous book, “My Education”, was a story of sexual obsession; the limit of self-knowledge is a recurring theme in her fiction. “Trust Exercise”, her fifth novel, focuses on trust and its abuse—particularly between predatory men and teenage girls. But her vision is much broader than the politics and recriminations of #MeToo.
As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that it, too, is a “trust exercise”. Readers place themselves in this gifted author’s hands, only to be yanked, sometimes violently, in unexpected directions. Each of the three sections initially jars, as perspectives shift and splinter. Yet for all the dramatic reversals, this is not a straightforward thriller.
The author uses language brilliantly. Sarah and her friend do everything possible to their hair, from bleach to perms, “as girls do when vandalising themselves seems the best way of proving their bodies are theirs.” Descriptions of sex are powerfully real. “Then Sarah is naked”, Ms Choi writes, “and the hot, slippery fit is accomplished.” She is an astute, forensic cartographer of human nature; her characters are both sympathetic and appalling.
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