Writers Who Read
2 February 2020
Trust Exercise
by Susan Choi
“It’s a novel about how we tell our story, and who else might be trying to tell our story, since our story is usually entangled with somebody else’s . . . ”
- Susan Choi
“. . . I wanted the characters to be in a place that isn't a cultural capital . . .
They're always yearning for
and aspiring to go
where the bright lights are.”
- Susan Choi
Trust Exercise - Susan Choi
- Marketing: Contemporary Literary Fiction, Romance Literary Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction
- Genre: Realistic, Present Day, Arch-Plot Long-Form
- Word count: 92,492
- Print Pages: 262
- Reading Level: 8th-9th grade
- POV:
- Part 1 (Sarah): 3rd Person Omniscient
- Part 2 (Karen): 1st Person; 3rd Person Close ("Karen")
- Part 3: 3rd Person Close (Claire)
- Publish date: April 9, 2019
- Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
- Sold By: Macmillan
- Awards: 2019 National Book Award For Fiction
- Named a Best Book of 2019 by: The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Elle, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, Refinery29, Town & Country, Cosmopolitan, The Millions, TIME
- Barak Obama's 2019 Book List
Author/Publisher Intent
Stylistic Choices
Structure, Pacing
Climax - what changed?
Scene sleuthing
Readability (Trust Exercise)
https://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp
Around the Table
Introductions with Attribution
Five Minutes Each
Writers Who Read: Coming Up
March 1: Lady In The Lake (2019) - Laura Lippman
April 5: Fleishman Is In Trouble (2019) - Taffy Brodesser-Akner
May 3: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
(2009, translated 2019) - Olga Tokarczuk
June 7: Agent Running in the Field (2019) - John le Carré