A Hundred Suns: A Novel

This was a very enjoyable book, and very difficult to categorize. Perhaps all the more enjoyable for that. It's a story of family secrets bubbling up from the past, an historical drama dealing with the difficulties of French colonial Indochina in the 1930s, a cat-and-mouse intrigue tale about two women who are at odds and yet pretending to be best friends; a story about a woman whose sanity is possibly coming apart; a love story that teeters on the edge of disaster with the threat of mental illness, etc.

The reader becomes absorbed in the life and travails of the protagonist, Jessie, who is living in Vietnam with her adoring husband and lovely child, and trying to make her way as a colonialist's wife, but her tale is not completely show more innocent. She is wrapped up in a family whose business dealings in Colonial Indochina leave a lot to be desired, ethically. Jessie's qualms about the family's actions, her husband's stewardship of their rubber plantations, her own complicity in evil, the moral ambiguity surrounding her own marriage, and many other issues, were deliciously complicated and morally murky. I loved that about this book -- that nearly all the characters are complicated creatures with ambiguous motives, neither villain nor hero. The issues that the author deals with -- the ability or impossibility to escape one's past, the complications arising from financial necessity, the actions one takes for monetary salvation, among many others -- are engrossing and complex. Then on top of that there's just a rollicking good suspense story, and a mystery which opens the book, unsolved until the end.

Kudos to the author for not painting the issues of colonialization of Indochina with a 21st-century moralizing brush, too often a fault in historical fiction. The author does justice to the complex nature of the time period and the events therein.

An overall really good read. show less

I was already interested A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe after reading her wonderful previous novel, The Gilded Years. In A Hundred Suns, American Jessie Holland Lasage moves to Vietnam, or French Indochina as it was then known, along with her French husband Victor Michelin Lasage and their adorable daughter Lucie. Victor is coming over to supervise the Michelin rubber plantations, because his clever wife spotted an opportunity for a Michelin cousin to prove himself in the distant colony, and return in a few years to a higher post in the inner circle back in France.

At least, that's the idea. As the story progresses, and Jessie meets more of the expat circle, everyone seems to have complicated motives for moving abroad. At first, her new show more friend Marcelle seems like another bored expat wife, but she has a Vietnamese boyfriend and ties to communist rebels. Jessie's husband may be mixed up in the Michelin family's darker side, cruelly exploiting local workers.

Jessie has been pretty much the master of controlling her narrative through careful omission and stretches of the truth. She's reinvented herself several times. Victor gives her a watch with an orange on it, because for him, the surname Holland means William of Orange, and not backwoods poverty like it does for Jessie. She is almost an unreliable narrator, since she's keeping so many secrets, and having such strange memory lapses.

Each character here has their own complex motivations and goals. The author shows how each person is affected by their past experiences, and each person thinks they're doing what must be done. So it's easy for readers to sympathize with more than one character, even when they're in opposition to each other.

This is a compelling ensemble novel with a satisfying but realistic conclusion. show less

A Hundred Suns tells the story of Jessie LeSage, an American from the south whose family history left her scarred. However, now she is an adult and married to one of the Michelins, sure, not with the last name, but still a Michelin. He’s working for the company and at her suggestion has come to Vietnam to manage the company’s plantations where unrest and the spread of communism have been problematic. It’s 1933, and everyone is tightening their belts, sometimes by tightening their workers’ belts.

The story opens with Jessie losing her family at the train station and then being told they were never there. Have they been kidnapped, have they left her, or is she losing her mind? The book brings us from their arrival in Hanoi to that show more crisis. It would seem possible that Jessie is an unreliable narrator, but that suspense is taken away from readers by having some chapters seen through Marcelle’s point of view. Marcells is a young woman who has followed her husband to Vietnam in order to follow her real love, a Vietnamese scion of silk industrialists. They are communists and committed to seeking revenge on the Michelins through the LeSages.

We soon learn that Marcelle has misread a situation so that she condemns Jessie as ruthless and complicit in the crimes of the Michelins against the Vietnamese. So I guess we should be on Jessie’s side. Certainly, Jessie makes impassioned defenses of capitalism when challenged.

A Hundred Suns was a compelling book. I did want to know what happened. However, it does seem Jessie was willing to countenance anything to maintain her comfort and lifestyle. In the end, was she really that different from Marcelle’s misperception? If this was intended to show how colonialism corrupts the colonials, it succeeded, but I don’t think that was the intent. After all, we are given the promise that the LeSages will run the plantations with humanity. Fat chance, 12,000 workers out of 45,000 Michelin plantation workers died between 1917 and 1944. It felt so false to suggest Victor and Jessie were going to created a kinder, gentler form of exploitation.

I received a copy of A Hundred Suns from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/9781250231475/ show less

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher.*

I don't know why so few authors have written about French Indochina, but this novel makes for a fascinating story of the colony and the people who lived there in the early twentieth century. The central characters in this novel - the American Jessie, her French husband Victor, her frenemy Marcelle, and Marcelle's Vietnamese lover Khoi - live luxurious lives in a French colony in which wealth is created by massive plantations and poorly compensated natives. For all their scheming, Marcelle and Khoi recognize the flaws in the system and are actively involved in communist recruitment. But they also have a very personal interest in Jessie and her husband and hatch a scheme to run the show more couple out of Indochina. The schemes and twists make this novel fun to read, but I was left unsatisfied by the moral bargains so many characters settled on, even if they were realistic to the era. show less

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe caught my interest for it's setting in 1930s Indochine (later, Vietnam) under French colonial rule.

Tanabe's protagonist Jesse plotted a life to escape the crushing poverty and abuse of her childhood. She achieved an education and became a teacher, then travels to Paris. When she catches a wealthy relation to the Michelin family, she is set up for life. They are in love and have a daughter.

She has kept her past a secret, so when a woman from her previous life shows up in Paris she is desperate to flee and convinces her husband Vincent to request a position overseeing the Michelin Indochine rubber plantations.

Tanabe's portrait of Indochine's beauty, tropical climate, and decadent expat society is vivid and show more beautifully rendered. High society--white and rich only, of course--has a veneer of respectability. The men indulge in sexual freedoms with the local women, the women indulge in leisure and alcohol, and everyone uses cocaine freely.

Vincent's success depends on keeping production high and expenditures low. He works to improve the quality of life for the local workers--the 'coolies.' But overseers deal out cruel punishment to any who try to unionize and fight for humane treatment., the leaders tortured or murdered.

Jesse is taken under wing by the beautiful French woman Marcelle. Marcelle has an agenda. She is a communist and hates colonization and the Michelin family, who were responsible for killing the Indochine man loved by her best friend. Her Indochine lover Khoi is wealthy and gorgeous; by law, they are not allowed to marry. The couple lure Jesse into compromising situations. Marcelle plots to drive Jesse and Victor back to France.

Jesse strives to help her husband in his work, but also experiences strange psychotic episodes and struggles with self-doubt.

I enjoyed reading the novel for it's setting and the suspense kept me turning pages. As readers come to understand the characters and their motivations deeper, the delineation between good and evil become blurred.

Colonization and unbridled capitalism are shown to be the true evils. The 'coolies' are virtual slaves, contracting to work for three years in brutal conditions. When workers strive to organize for better treatment they suffer dire consequences, while the French are given lenient punishments for crimes. A corrupt system corrupts those in the system.

There are scenes of sexual activity and a glimpse into the torture of communist leaders on the plantation, and stories of abuse suffered by Jesse and her siblings.

The novel will appeal to a wide range of readers--historical fiction, women's fiction, suspense and thrillers, and those who enjoy exotic settings. It is the perfect beach read.

I received a free book from the publisher through Book Club Cook Book. My review is fair and unbiased. show less

Historical fiction set in French Indochina, present day Vietnam, in the 1930s. Protagonist Jessie Lesage, an American with a troubled childhood, has arrived in Hanoi from Paris with her French husband, Victor Michelin Lesage, and young daughter, Lucie. Victor is the new manager of the Michelin rubber plantations near Saigon, which have recently been a source of scandal. Jessie meets French expat Marcelle de Fabray, a glamorous woman having an affair with an Indochinese silk magnate. The story is told in alternating points of view by Jessie and Marcelle.

The historical fiction portion of this book is very well done. It conveys a sense of place and time. The narrative portrays the lavish life of French expatriates, contrasted against the show more poverty and grim working conditions of the local residents. It covers the rise of communist, anti-communist, and anti-colonialist sentiments.

The less effective part, for me, is the attempt to turn the story into a thriller. Is someone gaslighting Jessie? Is she losing her mind? Jessie is harboring the secrets of her past. Dramatic tension is attained by gradually revealing these secrets. While it contains elements of a psychological thriller, it is not fast-paced or tense until near the end.

The dialogue is not particularly well-written. It is not the way people speak. Lots of “information dumping” takes place through characters talking to each other. I am sure the author felt a need to provide readers with a history lesson, but there are other ways. I found the epilogue unnecessary, but I am, in general, not a fan of epilogues.

So, the positives and negatives offset. I liked the historical parts and disliked the thriller sections. I think readers who enjoy twists and turns will like this book more than I did. show less

Historical fiction set in French Indochina, present day Vietnam, in the 1930s. Protagonist Jessie Lesage, an American with a troubled childhood, has arrived in Hanoi from Paris with her French husband, Victor Michelin Lesage, and young daughter, Lucie. Victor is the new manager of the Michelin rubber plantations near Saigon, which have recently been a source of scandal. Jessie meets French expat Marcelle de Fabray, a glamorous woman having an affair with an Indochinese silk magnate. The story is told in alternating points of view by Jessie and Marcelle.

The historical fiction portion of this book is very well done. It conveys a sense of place and time. The narrative portrays the lavish life of French expatriates, contrasted against the show more poverty and grim working conditions of the local residents. It covers the rise of communist, anti-communist, and anti-colonialist sentiments.

The less effective part, for me, is the attempt to turn the story into a thriller. Is someone gaslighting Jessie? Is she losing her mind? Jessie is harboring the secrets of her past. Dramatic tension is attained by gradually revealing these secrets. While it contains elements of a psychological thriller, it is not fast-paced or tense until near the end.

The dialogue is not particularly well-written. It is not the way people speak. Lots of “information dumping” takes place through characters talking to each other. I am sure the author felt a need to provide readers with a history lesson, but there are other ways. I found the epilogue unnecessary, but I am, in general, not a fan of epilogues.

So, the positives and negatives offset. I liked the historical parts and disliked the thriller sections. I think readers who enjoy twists and turns will like this book more than I did. show less