By Sinclair Adams
When talking about a book like Jinwoo Chong’s debut novel, Flux, it’s difficult to know where to start. Flux is a very ambitious and experimental book, which makes it challenging to approach, yet irresistible to want to talk about. To accurately describe and frame this book, I will be revealing some mild spoilers, but nothing past halfway into the story, since the novel has plenty of twists and turns up until the very last page.
Flux has three different and rotating perspectives. Brandon is a guy in his 20s who is struggling to hold stable relationships with friends and family, all the while being recruited into a maverick tech start-up whose true intentions are shrouded in mystery. Bo is a kid who is dealing with the sudden death of his mother and becoming more emotionally distant from his father and brother, coping with the trauma by becoming absorbed in the television series Raider. Finally, Blue is a cynical middle-aged man who is being interviewed about his involvement in a corporate disaster involving a billionaire personality-type, while trying to navigate his relationship to his college-aged daughter as they grow further and further apart.
From the description, it’s no surprise that family is a core theme in this story. What makes Flux such a painfully relatable read is that it does not attempt to give a perfect answer on how to be a better father, brother, or son. Instead, it displays troubled relationships for what they are, refusing to erase the hurt the characters experience as a result of their troubles.
Connecting with the theme of family is ethnic identity. Brandon, Bo, and Blue are all mixed-race white and Korean Americans. They can’t stably see themselves in their parents, and are subject to ignorant strangers challenging just “how Asian” they are. They live in a constant state of interrogation, showing the dichotomy that can come with being mixed-race in America.
The struggle to have an identity without compromise is also reflected in Brandon’s plotline through his sexuality. Brandon is bisexual, as he has relationships with male and female characters throughout the book. Because of this, the other characters around him are prone to asking about his identity and are not happy with the answers he supplies. When Brandon gives an ambivalent answer about what he likes, another character asks him, “How couldn’t you [know]?”
There are many other important themes that the book explores, like class warfare and impending near-future environmental disasters. One of the drawbacks of Flux’s ambitious narrative is that it attempts to talk about many topics, but is not given enough time to thoroughly develop and discuss everything at hand. Some themes and plot threads don’t quite hit their mark. However, that does not take away from the book’s strongest points, including its experimental style, which is fully embraced by intelligent writing.
While reading, it isn’t long before you realize that these three perspectives are more connected to each other than you first were led to believe. This is the first of many examples of Chong’s sleight of hand. Flux shows us that Chong is a master of perspective, deftly shifting from first-person, to third person-adjacent, and even omnisciently describing events from a television series.
Flux has an intersplicing narrative about a fictional retro TV show called Raider. Raider is a serialized show about a hardened yet suave white detective who often deals with cases in Little China. While Raider is a fictional TV show, its tropes and story structure are recognizable to anyone in the real world who grew up with primetime TV dramas from the 80s to the 2000s. Raider has reoccurring stock characters, season-finale stingers, and a dedicated fan base of cosplayers and analysts.
Chong’s descriptions of this imaginary TV show feel wholly real and believable. While I initially wasn’t looking forward to the Raider-themed segments of the book, I ended up enjoying them the most, because of how “true” they felt. TV heroes and the bond between them and the audience is a real feeling, that sometimes can bring more harm than good. It was probably my favorite piece of commentary in this story – the persisting and often contradictory lifestyle of being part of a fandom.
In the world of the book, there is a lot of meta-commentary about how Raider was a racist show in its portrayal of Chinese Americans. It doesn’t help that the actor who played the lead character was later “canceled” due to some recent revelations about his violent behavior towards women. This becomes a point of hurtful contradiction, because the book’s protagonists love Raider, but hate how the meaning of Raider has changed over the years. This piece of commentary is especially timely as people in today’s world are so tightly bonded with media, yet at the same time, unraveling just how corrupt the production of that media truly is. Not all of our childhood heroes turn out to be the people we remember them to be, and that disappointment is just one of many that fuels the angst and the restless soul-searching of Flux’s narrative.
There is so much to discover in the pages of this book. The twists in Flux feel very earned, as the book slowly drip feeds you information that builds up to great reveals, without feeling as if Chong is betraying you or making things up as he goes. Chong’s writing is economical at planting ideas that pay off later on, but still keep you on your toes guessing.
That being said, Flux is not a book for everyone. The beginning has a slow start, but after a third of the way in, when the true connective tissue of the plot is introduced, I read it voraciously.
I highly recommend it for fans of nonlinear and experimental stories, as well as fans of time travel and genre-bending narratives. For fans of books in general, Flux is one you can’t miss out on. Its innovative storytelling will serve as an inspiration in my mind for years to come.
Flux is available from Bookshop, Face & Fiction Bookstore, Green Bean Books, The Last Bookstore, Third Place Books, and Women and Children First.
Sinclair Adams is a writer interested in speculative and science fiction narratives. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Las Vegas and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Chapman University. She was an editor for Ouroboros Magazine, Chapman’s journal of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative fiction. Follow her on Instagram @sinclairwrites.