Dr. Lee is a tenured professor of mathematics at a university in the midwest who gets caught up in a bombing (reminiscent of the Unabomber) when the popular professor in the office next to his gets blown up. The fun begins when Lee's natural reticence, combined with his fierce determination to preserve his right to privacy, and a deeper inability to examine most parts of his past, draws the attention of the FBI investigators. Things go from bad to worse as Lee, traumatized by his experiences in his youth of the violent communist takeover of his (unspecified) country, responds in ways that bring him close to being a suspect. His personal life too is a shambles, two failed marriages, an estranged child and these come into play as well. [A Person of Interest] is not a perfect novel, but it is solid enough for me to be glad I finally picked it up and read it. ***1/2 ( )

I listened to this book on CD and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a good story that keeps the reader concerned about the main character, and there are unexpected turns. A math professor and his family and friends provide the basis for events that spiral out of control when a crime happens, with plenty of complexities along the way.

A purely personal note: the book bogged down momentarily in seemingly unnecessary minute details sometimes. While those provide more vivid pictures in the mind, many of them didn't matter one whit to the story. It's the artistry of the author, so it's hard to lower the rating on a good story and good writing for such a thing.

A good read all around. ( )

This is a rather odd book. It is beautifully written and is a fairly good read but it is a strange mixture. It is rather philosophical with the main character, a sixty-something college mathematics professor, reexamining his life, reconsidering assumptions, errors, failures and all of the factors that make up a human life. It also touches on prejudice against foreigners and people of color in America. At the same time, it is a crime novel. Had it been less schizophrenic I would have enjoyed it more. ( )

From the very first page of A Person of Interest, it is obvious that Susan Choi is an author who loves writing sentences, and also one who is exceedingly good at it. Nearly every sentence of this midsize novel is a miniature work of art, a winding path of coordinate and subordinate clauses, so masterfully paced and punctuated that the reader rarely, if ever, gets lost. Choi's vocabulary is precise and erudite, and her observations entertaining and psychologically acute. The artistry simply spills over every paragraph of every page.

Now, I am a reader who loves reading good sentences, and this made the book a joy for me to read. Furthermore, I am a reader who likes stories about academics. (What can I say, it's a soft spot. As an academic myself, there's a certain thrill of escapism I get from such fictions; this, no doubt, was a big part of why I fell in love with White Noise, and On Beauty, and Stoner, for instance.) In addition, I have a soft spot for mysteries and crime fiction of whatever stripe. So, A Person of Interest, a beautifully written whodunnit starring an aging professor, should be shoo-in for me, right?

Somehow, no. Despite all its merits, the novel just didn't do it for me in the end. Though I was definitely hooked well through the first half of the book, I felt that Choi fumbled things in the second. The main problem was what I'd diagnose as a lack of vision: A Person of Interest just can't seem to decide what it wants itself to be, and thus ends up not having much of substance to say. Though it touches on themes of loss and memory and family and racism, none of these elements ever really come together in a meaningful way. The characters (and especially, the novel's protagonist) are well developed enough, but are not (ironically) particularly interesting, or sufficiently relatable. In other respects, the novel seems like it just wants to be a straightforward mystery; but as a mystery, it is generally limp: predictable, and when not predictable, outlandish.

So, in the end, I feel strangely split between deeply enjoying the book as a piece of writing on the one hand, and feeling deeply disappointed by the book as a piece of fiction on the other. I will definitely be seeking out Choi's other work in the future, but I do not think I will ever return to A Person of Interest, and I will be hoping that her other books not fall prey to the same problems. ( )

so far really really good. i love susan choi, it turns out. ( )