WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Electrifying” (People) • “Masterly” (The Guardian) • “Dramatic and
memorable” (The New Yorker) • “Magic” (TIME) • “Ingenious” (The Financial
Times) • A gonzo literary performance” (Entertainment Weekly) • “Rare and
splendid” (The Boston Globe) • “Remarkable” (USA Today) • “Delicious” (The
New York Times) • “Book groups, meet your next selection (NPR) In an
American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive
performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble,
ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their
acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two
freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not
go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic
acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. The outside world of family life and economic
status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to
penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events
that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-
down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and
their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes
until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall
into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final
sentence. As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust
Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and
about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser
understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and
responsibilities of adults.