A Hundred Suns: A Novel

In 1933, American Jessie Lesage arrives in Vietnam with her French husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune. As the world faces economic depression, the family's vast plantations near Saigon represent their path to prosperity. Jessie is determined to protect this wealth and keep her American past hidden. Jessie enters the glamorous colonial world and befriends Marcelle de Fabry, a charismatic expatriate with a wealthy Indochinese lover, silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen. Marcelle becomes her guide to colonial life, but beneath her vivacious exterior lies a fierce political agenda: returning the colony to its people, beginning with the Michelin plantations. As sun-drenched days and champagne-soaked nights take their toll, Jessie's mental state deteriorates and her affection for Indochine wavers. A fiery political struggle builds around her, and she begins to question whether her friendship with Marcelle is genuine or merely a facade. Motivated by love and ambition, both women navigate the line between friendship and opposition, ethics and excess, against the backdrop of 1920s Paris and 1930s Indochine.