My Rating: 3.5 stars
In 1933, Jessie Lesage accompanies her husband Victor to Indochine (Vietnam)— a colony under French rule at the time — where he has taken up a post overseeing his famous Michelin family's rubber plantations. Not long after they arrive, the Lesages meet Marcelle de Fabry and her husband Arnaud, an expatriate French couple who, like themselves, are rich and well-connected. The two women quickly become friends, and with Marcelle showing her the way, Jessie starts to dive more deeply into the glamorous, exotic world of colonial Indochine. When she meets Marcelle's Indochinese lover, the rich silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen, and becomes more immersed in their world, Jessie begins to realize that there is more to Marcelle than meets the eye. It is also around this time that dark secrets from Jessie's past start to catch up with her — secrets that threaten to upend the family and lifestyle that she worked so painstakingly to build. Against a backdrop rife with political tension due to colonialism — where the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" runs in line with oppression of the native Indochinese by their Western conquerors — a complex story emerges, with characters often required to toe the ambiguous line between self-preservation and "doing the right thing."
This is a book that I found difficult to rate, as there were things that I liked (mostly the setting and the writing) but also things that didn't work as well for me. Going into this one initially, when I saw that the story would take place in 1930s Indochine, I was actually looking forward to reading it, as that particular setting isn’t often covered in historical fiction, plus it was a welcome departure from all the WWII-focused historical fiction that I had been reading in recent months. As is usually the case when I read this genre, I was hoping to learn something new about a country and time period that I was only vaguely familiar with. While I can't say that I didn't learn anything at all (because I did), I do have to say that this book fell a bit short of expectations for me from a genre perspective. When I read historical fiction, I expect to be transported to the story's time and place and feel as though I inhabit the same world as the characters – unfortunately, that didn't happen in this case. Instead, the Indochine setting felt kind of superficial to me, to the point that the main characters could've been transplanted to any other foreign Asian territory (not necessarily Indochine) and the story would've played out largely the same way. Don't get me wrong -- the author did incorporate some cultural elements into the story that gave us some insight into the historical setting, but the references were few and far between, as the focus of the story on the glamorous lifestyle of the wealthy elite as well as the "mystery" piece of figuring out Marcelle's connection with Jessie, both ended up overwhelming the historical aspects of the story. To me, this book felt like it should actually belong more in the thriller / suspense category than historical fiction – I think if it had been marketed as such, my reaction would've probably been quite different, as I did like the writing as well as the flow of the story overall, and the plot was intriguing enough to hold my attention from start to finish.
If I had to describe this story in one word, the first word that would come to mind is "lush" — whether it's the descriptions of the characters' decadent mansions, or their vibrant lifestyles steeped in lavish opulence, or even the surrounding landscape (both in Indochine where majority of the story takes place and also in Paris, where critical events involving several of the characters occur), it's hard not to see this story under the light of luxury and privilege. The narration of the story alternated between Jessie and Marcelle, which made sense given the direction of the story (especially if we look at the story from a "thriller" perspective), but from a historical and cultural perspective, I feel that this format didn't work too well. To strengthen the historical context, I feel like the other alternating perspective should've been from that of one of the Indochinese characters in the story, such as Trieu (Jessie's servant) or Lanh (the Lesage family's chauffeur) for example – I think this would have provided some much-needed balance to the story, though I guess it can also be argued that this would be an entirely different story then, perhaps not the same one that the author was trying to tell.
With all that said, I feel that overall, this was technically a good read – well-written and well-plotted for the most part (except for the ending, which I wasn't tremendously fond of) – but it could have been so much better. I would still recommend this book, just with the caveat not to go in with specific expectations in terms of genre.
Received ARC from St. Martin's Press directly as well as via NetGalley.
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