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Title: Brilliant, Searing, Flawed
Review: Katherine Monroe and her mother, Glee, are two of the most vivid women I have encountered in fiction for quite a long time. I began reading this book about two years ago, and although I put it down, I never was able to put out of my mind the opening chapter, when Chuck arrives at Sewanee and meets Katherine for the first time. Finally I have read the entire book, and I feel that it will haunt me for quite a while. One flaw in this beautiful novel is the love affair between Katherine and Chuck. I don't see that these very different people would attract one another. I found myself rooting for the depraved Charles Addison. Another flaw lies in the sometimes-lengthy flashbacks to the Korean War. They were sometimes labored and struck me as the product of fastidious research rather than first-hand knowledge (which would be impossible given Choi's birth in 1969). Aside from this, the novel is well worth reading and I look forward to Choi's future novels.
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