Flux

(Paperback)

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A New York Times Editor's Choice Best Book of 2023 by Esquire, Apple Books, HuffPost, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and Goodreads.Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut NovelVCU Cabell First Novelist Award "Brazen, exhilarating, fun, and surprising! I couldn't predict where this novel was going, but I was definitely along for the ride." -- Ling Ma, author of Severance A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvertently discovered time travel-and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes . . . Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family. So begins Jinwoo Chong's dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic '80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse. Flux is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

Reviews

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award 2024 - Finalist
PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel 2024 - Longlist
A Locus Magazine 2023 Recommended Reading List
A BookRiot What Even Is This: 8 Books That Blend & Transcend Genre
A BookRiot Most Underrated Sci-Fi on Goodreads
A BiblioLifestyle Best Literary Fiction of 2023
A Best of Korea Best Books by Korean Americans 2023
A CrimeReads Best Speculative Crime Fiction of 2023
A Shondaland Best Debuts of 2023
A HuffPost Best Book of 2023
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
A CrimeReads Best of 2023 Notable Selection
A Literary Hub Best Book Covers of 2023
AHudson News Best Books of The Year
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2023
A Nylon Most Anticipated Book of 2023
A Goodreads Most Anticipated Fantasy and Science Fiction Book of 2023
A Men's Health MostAnticipated Fantasy and Science Fiction Book of 2023
A Cosmopolitian Best LGBTQ+ Book of 2023 so far

"Its a pleasure to encounter a work like Jinwoo Chongs debut novel, Flux, that offers a healthy dose of brain-bending pleasure without making it the whole point...Flux happily offers a moving appraisal of lives buffeted by personal and systemic traumas; a deep dive into the good, the bad and the ugly of self-serving corporate culture; and no shortage of wait, what the heck just happened thrills." The New York Times Book Review

"This exhilarating and unique debut novel by Jinwoo Chong is surprisingly funny and haunting at the same time... Juggling multiple points of view and timelines is an ambitious endeavor but one Chong accomplishes with artistry and undeniable talent." - HuffPost

"Its rare for an authors debut novel to gather a lot of buzz, but that only shows how intriguing Flux is....Jinwoo Chong has crafted a lavish mystery thats hanging-off-the-edge-of-your-seat good." Cosmopolitan.com

"Ambitious...The narrative pleasures of Flux lie less in the big reveals than in watching Chong knit together genre tropes from sci-fi movies, speculative fiction and thrillers to tell a story about how what we remember can imprison us and why freedom may lie within... The book is an imaginative exploration of how cultural memory and grief interact." The Washington Post

"Stunning ... a profoundly moving story about grief, and about surviving in the hyper-capitalistic world of today ...Chong knows how to boldly blend the boundaries of genres ... an immensely rewarding read." -- The International Examiner

"Mind-bending... Chong writes with such subtlety and skill that readers wont realize the true nature of the speculative mystery at play until theyre already waist-deep in these interlocking narratives. The result is a gorgeous speculative gem for fans of Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstones This Is How You Lose the Time War." Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"Not yet 30, Chong bursts forth, Athena-like, with an impossible-to-simply-label masterpiece that melds various genresfrom Bildungsroman to speculative fiction, coming-of-age drama to epic tragedy, crime documentary to noirish thrillerinto an intricate literary mosaic...Chong stuns readers with a multipronged, multilayered, multivoiced, magnificent enigma." -- Booklist, STARRED review

"Chongs debut novel falls right on the emotional bubble between the cult film Donnie Darko and Charles Yus noodle-bender Interior Chinatown...A paranoid and inventive cautionary tale about buying into someone elses glitchy utopia." -- Kirkus, STARRED review

"Jinwoo Chongs engrossing debut braids three narratives -- a boy in mourning, a whistleblower, and a laid-off media employeeto unspool a mystery examining pop culture and time." -- Vanity Fair

"Flux takes the classic time-travel story and the detective story and mashes them up to create something wholly original, something that lives in between genres in the same way that its queer, biracial Asian American protagonist navigates the world. This novel earns its place as a work of speculative fiction, queer fiction, and contemporary Asian American fiction." Strange Horizons

"Jinwoo Chong has crafted a lavish mystery thats hanging-off-the-edge-of-your-seat good." -- Cosmopolitan

"A... genre-bending brain teaser." -- USA Today

"As Chongs characters intersect through time and space, both style and substance pour out of the seams of this striking debut novel." --Esquire

"Flux is aptly titled, and Chong's ability to tell a nuanced, intricate, and page-turning story shine in this immersive novel." -- Shondaland

"Flux is brisk, stylish, and sexy, a high-stakes noir thriller that makes room for big philosophical ideas..." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Part speculative fiction, part neo-noir, with some time travel thrown in for good measure, Flux is a wildly imaginative and mind-bending read." -- Buzzfeed

"Chong is an uncannily accessible writer ... compelling and utterly new." --Bloomberg Businessweek

"Jinwoo Chongs experimental debut brings to mind Charles Yus similarly genre-bending novel Interior Chinatown: Both express a deep affection for Hollywood nostalgia, cut through with the bittersweet reckoning with their imperfect heroes who nonetheless made for unprecedented representation." --Literary Hub

"Flux is a dizzying, dazzling debut... It's the kind of story where even the twists that seem inevitable and telegraphed end up surprising you in remarkably powerful ways...That's largely due to two of Chong's clear strengths as a writer: an ability to marry poetic abstraction with simple, accessible prose; and the insight to anchor everything emotionally in the characters." --Boing Boing

"Flux is... a daringly constructed thriller, a mystery that propels you through it with burning questions, magnetic characters, and gasp-worthy twists...a book for our time." --The Rumpus

"Exhilarating and entirely unique...Chongs mindbender of a novel is full of grief, trauma, relationships, humor and identity all while being Asian in America." --HuffPost

"A time-traveling noir and ambitious climate novel, Flux takes a close look at what happens when twenty-first-century egomaniacs bring their grifts to bear on the climate crisis. The result is a story that is equal parts wry and tender." -- The Millions

"A brilliant and enjoyable sci-fi tech thriller... Flux is haunting. I cannot begin to describe the plot without spoiling the joy of discovery. Its about climate justice scammers, sure, and about the promise of a technology exceeding its abilities. But at its heart is a guy, trying to define himself even as he realizes that theres no box to describe everything hes experienced and everything he feels." --The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"The novels themes ring out clearly. Its a story about grief, trauma, and the powerful influence of pop culture, especially during childhood. And in telling that story, with a great deal of heart and passion, Flux adds to a growing canon of terrific speculative novels... that explore the tension between Western and Asian culture from a second-generation perspective." --Locus Magazine

"Jinwoo Chongs debut novel Flux is that perfect alchemy of disorienting and delightful. Its also a masterclass on aspects of fiction ranging from point of view to structure to building and maintaining an enormous cast of characters to making room for joy." --Full Stop

"A bona fide good time... This speculative neo-noir novel by Mr Jinwoo Chong is a seriously accomplished debut. Flux, which is named after epoch-shifting tech, skewers the tumult mega corporations wreak on ordinary people, sensitively captures the life-altering effects of gargantuan loss and spikes gross stereotypes that still shadow Asian-American souls." --MR PORTER

"An unexpected sci-fi novel that integrates time travel and tech dystopia into the complex emotional landscape of its three narrators as they explore grief, trauma, and Asian-American identity." --Interview Magazine

"A...brilliant time-travel puzzle box." --Polygon

"If you like stories featuring neo-noir style, corporate corruption, and anything else that wouldnt be out of place in a slightly more humorous version of theBlade Runneruniverse, then check this one out!" --CrimeReads

"Riveting and distinctive..." --The Southern California News Group

"Pick this one up for a wholly unique speculative novel that looks at how our saddest moments shape us." --Book Riot

"This witty, heartfelt look at celebrity scandals, the indelible imprints pop culture leaves on individuals, and the transformative power of grief packs plenty of thought-provoking twists into a sci-fi thriller with depth. Some elements feel ripped from the headlines, grounding speculative aspects in a familiar reality." --Shelf Awareness

"The prose here is brilliant and honest, and the pl

Author Bio

Jinwoo Chong received an MFA from Columbia University. His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Salamander. Flux is his first novel. He lives in New York.