Book Review - The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

Synopsis:  On a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years, beginning in the splendor of Angkor Wat, with their mentor, larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, once Helen's infuriating love and fiercest competitor, and Linh's secret keeper, boss and truest friend.

First Line:  "The city teetered in a dream state."

Random Quote:  "The sickle of moon angled down the narrow alley, lit the precarious room, the ramshackle bed.  Darrow traced her profile with his fingertip.  He was falling in love in his own way, building a legend not quite her."

Review:  I have the clearest memory of watching the fall of Saigon on a portable black-and-white television in my teenage bedroom in Dallas, TX - the drama of it all was unforgettable.  The helicopters lifting off from the Embassy roof with frightened people hanging from the treads hoping for a way out, the grounds of the Embassy crowded with people we left behind in our hurry to abandon a place we never should have been.  The only clear thing about it all to me was that we hadn't made anything better by our presence there, by the lives lost, by the economic and environmental destruction - the country and its people were left to carry on without us as they had through centuries of invaders.  We were nothing special there.

Angkor Wat - Image via Wikipedia

The Lotus Eaters is a first novel I wish I had written.  Lush, elegant, epic, sweepingly romantic it captures the end of the War, the struggle to tell the story, to find your own place within it, to find a way out, to find a way home, to even know what home is.  I couldn't help but think of Michael Herr's brilliant memoir on his experiences as a correspondent during the War, Dispatches - the two books have a similar hallucinatory feel that captures my own sense of Vietnam.  It's always been flashes of footage from the evening news, snatches of images from papers and magazines and books - it all seems like one horribly real flight of of fancy filled with consequences both knowable and unknowable.

Image via Wikipedia

Ms. Soli captures the ambivalence of her characters and their relationship to their situation - their love of each other, of country, of adventure, of danger, of getting that one perfect shot that will tell the story.  There is a certain distance that is afforded to those who are behind the lens that heightens the nightmare sense of it all.  This is also an epic love story in the best sense - a journey in hopes of reuniting, a love of place and its people.  The Lotus Eaters goes on my shelf as one of the best books I've read about the Vietnam War.  You should read it, too.

FTC Disclosure:  Copy received for review from the publisher for TLC Book Tour

Rating:  Orange

Reading Challenges:  Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

I am pleased to be a part of Ms. Soli's book tour through TLC Book Tours.  You can visit her website here.  Check out the rest of her book tour, too!

Tatjana Soli’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, December 20th:  You’ve GOTTA Read This!
Monday, January 3rd:  Simply Stacie
Tuesday, January 4th:  1330V
Wednesday, January 5th:  Rundpinne
Thursday, January 6th:  The Bookworm
Friday, January 7th:  Nomad Reader
Monday, January 10th:  Life in the Thumb
Tuesday, January 11th:  Man of La Book
Wednesday, January 12th:  The 3 R’s Blog
Thursday, January 13th:  The Well-Read Wife
Friday, January 14th:  In The Next Room
Tuesday, January 18th:  Chaotic Compendiums
Wednesday, January 19th:  Melody & Words
Thursday, January 20th:  Musings of an All Purpose Monkey
Friday, January 21st:  Book Bird Dog
Monday, January 24th:  Raging Bibliomania
Wednesday, January 26th:  Rhapsody in Books
Thursday, January 27th:  Nonsuch Book