The Foreign Student: A Novel [Hardcover]

Susan Choi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

Set in wartime Korea during the early 1950s, and in the American South in the years immediately following, The Foreign Student brings together two intelligent, original charactersa Korean student and a rebellious young American womanin an affecting story of improbable love and emotional healing.

Chang Ahn, called Chuck, has arrived at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, with the contents of one suitcase and a working knowledge of English. It is 1955, and he has come to escape nightmarish memories of his native Korea. Guarded and reserved, Chuck is slow to befriend the American students, with the exception of Crane, a boisterous, wealthy dormitory mate who sets aside his own parochial opinions to cultivate a friendship with this intriguing Korean. A charismatic professor of English, Charles Addison, also takes a particular interest in Chuck.

But it is Katherine Monroe, alone among the members of the sleepy college community, who becomes the private center of Chuck's attention. In many ways, Katherine is as much an outsider as he is. Neither student nor faculty, she lives in Sewanee, somewhat isolated in her family's onetime summer house. The two meet on his first morning in town, and they sense an immediate, strange affinity. Katherine, commanding and resolute, begins marshaling Chuck on his round of obligations, and they form a devoted, if cautious, friendship. Both remain circumspect about the afflictions of the past that have led them to seek a kind of refuge in Sewanee.

The seemingly impossible love that develops between Katherine and Chuck is as first denied, later resisted by both. It will drive them apart, and send them on separate journeys of self-discovery that will eventually strengthen the bonds rather than the differences between them. Both loners and survivors, they must come to recognize why their pasts have led them to this particular time and place, and what fate has, perhaps, intended.

With the storytelling prowess of a seasoned veteran, and the elegant prose of a rare master of fiction, Susan Choi has written a stunning first novel. At once haunting and illuminating, The Foreign Student is a remarkable achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The year is 1955 and a young Korean man has just arrived at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Chang Ahn has been dropped off at night in the middle of nowhere and left to make his way to the campus on his own: "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.... You would not have known that the motionless person had just walked two miles straight uphill with a steady and terrified step." It soon becomes apparent that Chang, called Chuck, suffers from more than just fear of the dark. During the Korean War, he was first a translator for the United States and later a prisoner in a Communist internment camp. Even in the U.S. "he could not accept the lack of precaution as a sign that he was safe." On his first day in Sewanee, Chuck meets Katherine, a young woman who lives in town and is the secret lover of a professor who was once a classmate of her father's--and the man who first seduced her when she was 14.

The American South in 1955 is hardly an ideal locale to start an interracial romance, yet Katherine and Chuck are drawn to each other almost from the start. What begins as friendship gradually becomes something more, yet it takes a surprise proposal from Katherine's lover and a summer spent apart to make them face their true feelings. Susan Choi writes this first novel with assurance, weaving Chuck's terrible experiences of war and Katherine's own troubled past into a heartfelt tale of love that demonstrates real talent. Choi is definitely a writer to keep your eye on. --Margaret Prior

From Publishers Weekly

Love develops between two troubled people from vastly different worlds in this impressive debut. In 1955, traumatized Korean refugee Chang, or Chuck, as he is renamed by an American soldier, arrives at college in Sewanee, Tenn. Haunted by his war experiences, he lives in seclusion until he meets Katherine Monroe, a New Orleans heiress. Estranged from her family, Katherine, too, is mired in the past, having begun an affair at age 14 with an English professor nearly 30 years her senior. As their unlikely friendship develops, the two are sexually drawn to each other and enter into a brief but passionate affair. Choi evokes the terrain of the Tennessee mountains with a cinematic touch. She also displays a keen eye for the courtly manners of a small Southern town. But it is in her beautifully detailed evocation of the rich, albeit scarred emotional landscapes of her characters that she is at her best?grave, clear-eyed and artless. Indeed, the paths that bring Chuck and Katherine together are more convincingly traced than their eventual relationship, which at times seems somewhat contrived, the one weakness in a work full of ambition and considerable talent.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Harperflamingo; 1st edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006019149X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060191498
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,330,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Novel That Stops Time, May 11, 2002

By 

"sofomtext" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Foreign Student: A Novel (Paperback)

I usually dislike reading KA fiction because it gets irritating when authors write about Korea but describe the country with skewed, distorted myths about it's culture and history and auto-Orientalist themes that cater to the mainstream.

Not so with this novel. I found myself completely lost in the story, not even caring about the "authenticity" issue because Choi does what all great writers do: she re-imagines and re-creates a palpable "real" universe that stops time. The fictional world transcends almost everything else I've read by Korean Americans, making you believe the characters, the location, the feelings. In short, it is a beautifully written novel and my personal favorite of all the Asian American novels I've read.

That having been said, I am happy to attest that Choi does indeed write about the truth of the Korean War that goes against the conventional American myths about this unknown conflict. Choi does not hesitate to go into little known aspects of the war such as S. Korean President Syngman Rhee's execution of political prisoners and the Cheju/Yosu rebellions which took 100,000 lives even before the Korean War erupted in June 1950. Moreover, Choi depicts the Orientalist, racist experiences for Chang, a foreigner in America's South, and subtly links it to America's damaging foreign policies that warped Korea. She even resurrects a devastatingly convincing portrait of Gen. Hodge, the commander of the US military government in S. Korea--you can practically hear him breathing and speaking. This novel is startling in its audacity to depict America's occluded responsibility for the war that probably even challenges what most Koreans over 50 believe. As a former fact-checker for the New Yorker magazine, I suspect that she used her skills to do meticulous research into the origins of the Korean War. Having lived in Korea (and in Chicago, where her description of Clark and Belmont is right on) I am surpised by her accuracy and the "truth" of her details. I've read an article where Choi downplays the "authenticity" issue of her novel, and emphasizes that it is fiction. She's right, of course, but I am simply delighted that she has rendered a beautiful story that will not only impress the common reader, but satisfy those familiar with Korean history. Her research only heightens the pleasure of reading this gem of a novel.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The _Creep_ of Love, April 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Foreign Student: A Novel (Hardcover)

There's no doubt that Choi is a fine writer. Her descriptive powers are phenomenal; line by line, this novel is a gem. But what really stands out in this debut is Choi's intense psychological digging of her two main characters. To say that she gets into their heads would be a great understatement. When you read this book, you live these two characters' lives -- and goodness, what lonely lives they lead. I think that's why the scenes between Chuck and Katherine smolder -- because they are two lonely people fighting their own battles through their love for each other. For me, the best part of the book was seeing the _creep_ of love, the way it climbs like ivy -- slowly and in tangles, its resilience and its power to bore through -- even through the stone exteriors of these two characters.

Furthermore, I believe this is the first work to actually use the Korean War as a significant backdrop. Kudos for you, Ms. Choi -- somebody had to do it, and I'm glad it was you, because you did it right.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING, September 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Foreign Student: A Novel (Paperback)

This is by far the best-written work I've come across that deals with issues inclduing the Korean War, Koreans in America, etc. But more than that, it's a novel of manners about the South in the 1950's. I'd given up on a lot of stuff that is categorized under "Asian American fiction," but this is one of those novels that you don't want to put down. It's beautifully written, evocative, and the best novel--in any category-- that I've read in years.