Starred review from November 27, 2023
Vietnam during WWII and immediately after provides the backdrop for this transportive novel of love and resistance from Pham (Catfish and Mandala). In 1942, Tuyet is a divorced single mother living with her aunt and cousin in the small fishing village of Phan Thiet. There, she meets Maj. Yamazaki Takeshi, who is part of the Japanese occupation. Despite their differences, an unlikely friendship springs up between the two and eventually blossoms into love, marriage, and family. When the war is over, Takeshi decides to join the Viet Minh resistance against the French, who have retaken the country. Tuyet goes into hiding with her aunt and children as Takeshi’s cadre embarks on bloody raids against the colonial forces. As the war continues, both sides commit acts of savagery, with the lives of Tuyet and her family always in the balance. Combining the sensuality of Marguerite Duras with the revolutionary politics of Andre Malraux, Pham describes the ordeals faced by Tuyet and Takeshi in the most viscerally harrowing of terms, creating two memorable characters whose relationship is equal parts romantic and sacrificial. With captivating force, Pham brings to life a lesser-known aspect of the tragic history of Vietnam.

Starred review from January 1, 2024
A novel of love and loss, betrayal and war during the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. France has ruled the colony of Indochina for three generations by the time the Japanese army invades. In 1942, Le Tuyet is a young, divorced mother who confronts a local French bureaucrat and catches the attention of Yamazaki Takeshi, a major in the Imperial Japanese Army. The major admires her beauty and spirit and eventually begins to earn her trust. The two honorable people both speak the language of loss and loneliness, and they fall in love and eventually have children. "They had all that could be good and kind and sweet between two people," and she hopes their spirits will be "unassailable by the evil to come." But tragedy inevitably abounds, with many Viets resisting occupation by either foreign power. French colonial official Gaspar Feraud bears a deep grudge against Takeshi and asks a colleague to "help me...get [him]." Readers may lose themselves in the quiet scenes so rich in detail, and yet the violence and degradation come as a punch in the gut. On a canvas ceiling is "a constellation of blood." A rape is horrific, the retribution medieval. Conditions in a women's prison are grim, with rats and lice being far from the only problems. The story extends beyond Japan's surrender and into the early 1950s as the Resistance against the French evolves into the group called the Viet Minh. Perhaps Takeshi can bring his family to his beloved Hokkaido, where the cherry trees blossom in the spring and there will be peace. Or perhaps not. "In the name of the lady Buddha, [Tuyet] would fight the French until her last heartbeat." Indeed, a friend says that "her totem is the tiger." Little does Tuyet know that driving out the French is only the beginning; the true cataclysm is to come, when the United States can't leave well enough alone--but that's another story. The main characters are deeply sympathetic in their struggles against continual heartbreak. An engrossing story set amid a rich historical background.

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