A Hundred Suns

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe 400 pages

One of my all-time favorite authors, Fiona Davis, called this novel “A haunting evocative tale.” USA Today said that it “…leaves you gripping the edge of your seat.”  I was excited to read this book.

I curled up in my favorite reading chair, ready to had to a faraway land (French Indochine [now Viet Nam], 1933) to join a family dynasty (Michelin [as in rubber]) and following a trail of secrets. At 400 pages, I was ready for a long escape from the stay-at home orders of the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic.

The first chapter opens in the Hanoi train station on November 20, 1933. Author Remmer does an excellent job in capturing its feel…and by the time I reached the end of Chapter One, I was sure that this would be a wonderful novel. It felt like something out of Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Chapter Two backs the story up and the rest of the novel explains how a minor cousin of the famous Michelin family, Victor Lesage and his family had arrived in order to be the overseers of two rubber plantations. They are the first of the famous family to ever reside on the plantations.  Riots and massacres are no strangers to the area, but back in France, the Michelins have been able to ignore it.

And that’s where the author lost me. It was a tough read after that. I didn’t understand all the French, and I assume what we now call Vietnamese, words. Not to mention the names of places that I couldn’t decipher nor could I place in either the Northern or Southern parts of the country.

As I read some of the Hitchcockian chapters returned, and I would be glad I had slogged through. But then that joy quickly disappeared again. 

I’m sure the problems I encountered with this novel were more me than the author’s fault. But still, I must give “A Hundred Suns” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.