Book Review: In The Fabled East by Adam Lewis Schroeder

I remember the expression “the mysterious east”, a cliché not much in circulation these days.  The author of this large and ambitious novel flirts with cliché using his title but the story he unfolds is reassuringly original.  “East” turns out to be specifically south-east Asia, more specifically Vietnam and Laos as they were constituted in what used to be called French Indo-China.  This is a period piece all right, complete with white suits and pith helmets under the scorching sun.  In truth in some ways it’s vaguely reminiscent of Conrad with maybe even a dash of Jules Verne.  For one thing there’s a long trip up a river, a mission deep into the sweating, choleric jungle. Mekong! The name alone is enough to make a fabulist swoon  This is a mystery story, a search epic and a fantasy camp for anyone drawn to the exotic, the lurid, the unlikely and the seemingly impossible.  It’s a tale of obsession and of love. “East” is a kind of addiction, a dependency, an inevitability and a tiger infested myth.

The characterizations are brilliant, starting with the Saigon-based duo in the Department of Immigration for the Vice-Regency of Cochin-China, Pierre Lazarie and Henri LeDallic, the former the neophyte, fresh from the Sorbonne and just off the boat, a bit fussy and pretentious; the latter his minder, the old hand, in country twenty-five years, cynical, dissolute, and with a jaded wit.  These gentlemen are great fun and their milieu of the Saigon of 1936 is rendered pitch perfect.  You are there:  The air smelling of mould and beaucoup Gitanes, the whirling electric ceiling fans, the swaying towers of  bureaucratic documents, the creaking wicker chairs, the functionaries, the coolies, the rickshaws, the tennis rackets, the Hotel Continental. 

Enter Captain Emmanuel Tremier of the Third Army who’s looking for his mother.  Of course he is.  Years ago she left him in Paris as a boy and disappeared out here looking for a cure for tuberculosis.  Did she ever find it?  He wants to know what became of her and Lazarie and LeDallic are tasked with the investigation.  Difficulties ensue.

The heroine, Adélie Tremier, is the fourth corner of the narrative.  The novel bounces around in time to Paris to render her back story and that of her son’s and ultimately shoots forward to the era of the Dien bien Phu defeat, 1954 and the end of French Indo-China and the end of the tale.  But what has happened?  Could Adélie Tremier really have survived in the jungle all these years?  Is it conceivable that her son, “Manu”, a veteran of two world wars and now a Foreign Legion sergeant under the nom de guerre Merde, dodging the Viets on a lost patrol in the wilds of Laos, has really reunited with her?  Can it be true?  Did she really go native and is it her?  C’est vrai?

Questions.  And you’ll have to decide for yourself.  What isn’t in doubt is the incredible detail and sophistication of this story.  It’s beautifully produced book too, a nice presentation.  For me the heroine remains rather a spectre-like figure.  I’m not sure whether I believe in her or not.  That she’s an ethereal creature, no question.  In Paris, Saigon and the jungle.

Catch Adam Lewis Schroeder at events #7, #37 and #59.