Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

The first lecture of the Pittsburgh Arts and Lecture series (virtual only because of the pandemic) featured Susan Choi and Trust Exercise. As I started reading the novel, I was immediately reminded of A Chorus Line with a group of performers who were attending a rehearsal. The setting for this novel is the CAPA school in a city that is not identified and its main characters are high school students, not yet 16 and unable to drive at the onset of the novel. 

As the novel begins, so does the story of Sarah and David. They aren't a couple quite yet, but the reader senses that they will be as the sexual tension builds and they begin sleeping together the summer before their sophomore year.  The theatre teacher, Mr. Kingsley picks up on this relationship and, to the discomfort of the two, begins pairing them for class exercises creating tension and frustration. In the spring of that year a group of students under the tutelage of Martin. arrives from Bournemouth, England. At this point Sarah is attracted to Liam, one of the visiting students, but she still has feelings for David. Surrounding all this drama are the relationships with other students: Joelle, Manuel, and Karen, whose mother bails out Sarah after a party at the Kinsley home. 

At this point in the novel, the reader realizes that s/he has been tricked and that the first part is really a part of the book that Sarah has written. The point of view switches to that of Karen, who provides a different spin to the events that have occurred. The time has fast forwarded until the characters are in their thirties and Karen meets Sarah in Los Angeles for a book-signing event and brings her up-to-date with the happenings in their hometown. David is an owner of a theatre and staging a play written by Martin. Karen reveals her relationship with him and Sarah returns to see the play. In some shocking twists, the reader is again transported another fifteen years into the future and the point of view changed again.  

This is quite a complex novel that is layered in the points of view of its protagonists, but throughout, the overriding theme of sexual predation comes through. Adolescents, women, and even possibly a young male student fall victim to a patriarchal society that victimizes the young and female. And until Karen takes matters into her own hands, all go unpunished. Confusion, confirmations, and contradictions are revealed through the various points of view as Choi challenges the reader to reflect on interpersonal relationships between her characters and the relationships in her readers' lives. Worthy of a reread fully knowing the structure of the book.

Her lecture on 14 September 2020 was enlightening and thought provoking, giving a perspective to her approach to writing and the process that follows.