Review: A Hundred Suns

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe
My rating: 3.25 of 5 stars


Telling the story of two women, Jessie, an American expat who married into the famed Michelin family, and Marcelle, a former fashion model married to the French head of the Hanoi Chamber of Commerce, author Karin Tanabe offers the reader of A Hundred Suns insights into 1930's Indochine and the strife surrounding the Michelin rubber empire. French colonialism in the region was rife with the gauzy lies of improving quality of life while profiting off virtual slave labor. Jessie, who has a good heart, wants to believe the best of the Michelin propaganda about the lives of plantation "coolies." Marcelle, long in love with a communist sympathizer Nguyen Khoi, actively works to destroy Jessie and her husband's lives in Indochine, as she seeks liberation for those working under the yoke of the powerful Michelin labor machine. (Contemplate the idea that during the US war against the Viet Cong in Vietnam that the Michelins were rumored to have paid off the Viet Cong to leave the plantations alone, and that they charged the US forces for any damage to their plantations in spite of the fact that, in theory, the US was rooting out the communist threat the Michelin family had long opposed.) Each of these women's lives is shrouded in lies and subterfuge, with Jessie, in particular, running from a dark past.

The setting of the novel was interesting, though I wish that Tanabe had convinced me more of a sense of 1930's Hanoi. While the book certainly made me crave watching the film Indochine again, I found the lives of Jessie and Marcelle to be a little too convoluted, in particular Marcelle's machinations to try to get Jessie to return to France, when it was obvious to the reader that Marcelle was aware of Jessie's reasons for moving to Indochine in the first place. I also found some aspects of the character relationships to be inconsistent. For instance, Jessie's mother in law distrusts her so much with Lucie to the extent Jessie ends up in Switzerland (spoilers there...), but listens to her plan of moving to Indochine to further ingratiate Victor with the powerful end of the Michelin family with which they are not as involved?

A pleasant enough diversion for lovers of historical fiction and suspense stories.

The audiobook, narrated by Angela Dawe and Emily Ellet, was nicely voiced.

I received a digital review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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