“Flux,” the debut novel by 2013 Princeton High School alumnus Jinwoo Chong, covers a lot of ground. It tells the interwoven story of Bo, an eight-year-old grappling with the death of his mother in a freak accident; Brandon, a 28-year-old laid off from his job at an artsy magazine after a corporate takeover; and Blue, a 48-year-old witness in a trial against a defunct tech company implicated in the murders of several employees.
The title is apt, as these characters find themselves caught between worlds, and the reader finds him or herself lost in the novel’s blur of time travel and personal explorations of grief and trauma brought about by a tech company experimenting with technology whose full power it may not fully understand. As the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together for the reader, so too do the intersecting lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue.
Chong appears at Princeton Public Library on Thursday, February 22, at 6:30 p.m. as part of a fundraising event hosted by the Friends and Foundation of Princeton Public Library. The cost to attend is $30; $75 includes a copy of “Flux.” Register at www.princetonlibrary.org.
Chong, who earned an MFA from Columbia University and works as sales planner for the New York Times, will discuss “Flux” with Laura-Spence Ash, whose debut novel “Beyond That, the Sea,” was published last year and was called “a timeless exploration of what it means to create a family, of how dreams can die and be reborn in surprising ways” by The New York Times. She was named one of the 10 Writers to Watch by Publishers Weekly.
Chong’s second novel, “I Leave It Up To You,” is forthcoming spring 2025 in the US from Ballantine and the UK & Commonwealth from Scribe.
In the follow excerpt from the book’s opening chapter, we meet Raider, a the titular character in a 1980s detective show whose twists and turns — both on and off screen — are intertwined with the stories of Bo, Brandon, and Blue.
Your line was always: “give me a reason.” Always. And forget the fact that it was and continues to be the cheesiest TV-pilot-gravel-voiced-detective-mystery catchphrase ever written. It was your thing, you were the guy who wanted everybody in the world to give you a reason, the reason, any reason, and for the most part, for most of the episodes through 1985 and 1986, people did. When you said it, the world was right. Your writers were genius. They kept us — kept me — coming back because, above all, we loved you too much to see you fail. That’s why the show worked. After the rocky pilot and early yarns, you found your footing with the Little China episode (season 1, episode 14, “Fractures of the Heart”), after which you were unstoppable. They loved your chiseled face, your dark aura and hard eyes. You were handsome, cunning, young — one of the youngest detectives on the force, you fulfilled the legacy of your dead mother and father, killed in a home invasion when you were a child (retconned as such season 2, episode 4, “Anytime, Anyplace,” from a house fire mentioned in the pilot). You got what you wanted, you nailed them, every time, you were a step ahead, a bar above. I loved you. For real, man, I loved you. I hate what’s become of you, what they say about you, that you’re derivative, that you’re toxic, because none of it is your fault. Because every day after school I was the kid busting out the tapes and watching the scratchy reruns from the ’80s until I was yelled at. I still have all the episodes, digitized and saved on a flash drive that I play on my laptop to fall asleep. My mother never liked the show, saying always it was too violent. She didn’t like the guns and didn’t understand that was just the way of your world like I did. You want a reason, Thomas Raider, a reason, the reason it all happened, and I’ll give it to you. This pisses you off; you want answers now, I’m sure, and to that I’ll say this: do yourself a favor, play a little pretend with me. It should be easy for you. You’re not even real.
Jinwoo Chong in Conversation with Laura Spence-Ash, Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street, Princeton. Thursday, February 22, 6:30 p.m. Register. $30; $75 with copy of “Flux.” www.princetonlibrary.org.
