A Person of Interest

Lee, an Asian-American mathematics professor at a third-rate Midwestern college, engages in interior grumbling about the sorry state of his colleagues, students, and academia in general, when a mail bomb explodes in the office next door. Jealous of the successes of others, Lee, a solitary, embittered man, suddenly finds himself a person of interest in the bombing. Bernadette Dunne narrates Susan Choi's outstanding psychological study with understated authority. Lee isn't a likable man, and Dunne's quiet, thoughtful performance enhances Choi's intent. The author was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist for AMERICAN WOMAN, which fictionalized Patty Hearst's kidnapping. This time Choi writes a parallel speculation around the Unabomber case, drawing listeners into the life of a critically flawed man in a society deeply distrustful of foreigners. Dunne's reading is precise, intelligent, and satisfying. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Starred review from November 5, 2007
After fictionalizing elements of the Patty Hearst kidnapping for her second novel (the 2004 Pulitzer finalist American Woman
), Choi combines elements of the Wen Ho Lee accusations and the Unabomber case to create a haunting meditation on the myriad forms of alienation. The suggestively named Lee, as he's called throughout, is a solitary Chinese émigré math professor at the end of an undistinguished Midwestern university career. He remains bitter after two very different failed marriages, despite his love for Esther, his globe-trotting grown daughter from the first marriage. As the book opens, Lee's flamboyant, futurist colleague in the next-door office, Hendley, is gravely wounded when Hendley opens a package that violently explodes. Two pages later, a jealous, resentful Lee “felt himself briefly thinking Oh, good
.†As a did-he or didn't-he investigation concerning Lee, the novel's person of interest, unfolds, Lee's carefully ordered existence unravels, and chunks of his painful past are forced into the light. While a cagily sympathetic FBI man named Jim Morrison and Lee's former colleague Fasano (who links the bombings to several other technologists) play well-turned supporting roles, Choi's reflections from Lee's gruffly brittle point of view are as intricate and penetrating as the shifting intrigue surrounding the bomb. The result is a magisterial meditation on appearance and misunderstanding as it plays out for Lee as spouse, colleague, exile and citizen.