The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (Harper)

The Lotus Eaters is Tatjana Soli’s first novel. She has set her story amidst the Vietnam War, or as the Vietnamese call it, the American War. It focuses on a woman named Helen Adams, a woman who dreams of becoming a photographer for Life magazine. She is also torn between two men she loves - Sam Darrow, her mentor and Nguyen Pran Linh, an ex-soldier and assistant to Darrow. 

The story opens with the fall of Saigon. The time is April 1975. At this time, Helen had been in Vietnam for over ten years. She and Linh are on their way out of the country. Linh may be Vietnamese but he has papers that will allow him to flee on one of the last flights out of the country. As the two rush to the U.S. Embassy, Lihn is shot and injured. Helen is determined that they will both leave, although unknown to Lihn, she plans to stay to cover the changeover. 

The story then goes back to the beginning when Helen first goes to Vietnam. After losing her brother in the war, Helen decides to go to Vietnam and tries to make a name of herself as a photojournalist. There she meets prize-winning journalist Sam Darrow. It is not love at first sight as Darrow treats her like a child but he takes her under his wing and she develops a love for him knowing full well that he is a married man and constantly feels as if she is being watched by his assistant Linh. 

After Darrow is killed in a helicopter accident, the bond between Helen and Linh gets stronger. However, Linh is a very private man. Helen does not know as yet that he was a former soldier fighting for the North but deserted the army and headed to Saigon with his wife. Helen does not know the burden Linh carries with him wherever he goes. His wife is dead, he is a deserter, and yet he is also attracted to Helen. 

The love triangle between Helen, Sam, and Linh and their relationship with each other seems to play out as a soap opera at times and the background of all three characters makes you care for them as real people. Their strong personalities can sometimes be aggravating but when you take into consideration the time and circumstances, one can imagine that you need to be strong in order to love and survive in a war zone. 

Soli was inspired by the female journalists who worked in Vietnam during the war. In her research she came across people such as Catherine Leroy, Kate Webb, and Barbara Gluck but it was the true story of Pham Xuan An, “a North Vietnamese intelligence agent who also was working undercover as a journalist for Time magazine” which would set her on her path to completing this novel. 

The Vietnam War may have ended for both countries and for Helen and Linh, but that didn’t stop the world from continuing their various conflicts. The war may have officially ended in 1975 but the next conflict to make headlines was the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and the beginnings of the “killing fields”. 

It is one thing for governments and people to say, “Never again!” Yet it seems apparent that we as a people haven’t learned anything from our past. Following Vietnam, there was the genocide in Cambodia, the Bosnian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and now Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attack on the Ukraine. When will there be a time when people say “Never again!” and really mean it? ~Ernie Hoyt