The Foreign Student ~ by Susan Choi

The Foreign Student ~ by Susan Choi, 1998, fiction

Have you ever heard of Sewanee, Tennessee? Did you know there's a college there? Um-hmm, that's what I thought. I chose to read this book because its setting is about 45 minutes from here, at Sewanee, near Monteagle, Tennessee. If you've ever driven I-24 from Nashville to Chattanooga, you crossed a steep mountain, at the top of which is the Monteagle exit. For those of you who read what I wrote about Madeleine L'Engle, Sewanee is where I heard her speak and got to shake her hand.

Choi's novel takes place in the mid-1950's, a time I was in my teens. I think there was only one occasion when a character traveled to Chattanooga, and it was NOT a significant scene. The premise is that Chang Ahn, promptly renamed "Chuck" by an American, comes to Tennessee to attend college. He suffered during the war (what we in the United States call the Korean War or Korean conflict) and refuses to talk about it, though we readers enter his thoughts and know some of what he went through. At Sewanee he meets Katherine Monroe, a naive Southern girl in spite of her "affair" with professor Charles Addison. I put "affair" in quotations because she was only 14 at the time. Ooooo, how times have changed. That professor would be in BIG trouble today ... and should have been then.

Okay, so you're thinking, "Boy meets girl, they fall in love, slight complications ensue, but they live happily ever after at the end." Well, no, it doesn't work that way in this novel. Right away you should see major complications from his war-scarred psyche and her uncertain sexuality. Throw in Crane, a self-absorbed dorm "friend" of Chuck's, whose father is a racist and a member of the Klan. And then there's that older professor, who seemed to me the least mature character in the book. Toss lightly and savor, but don't expect wild action. Did I like the book? Yes, I did ... and rated it 8/10.