The Zenith

Vietnamese exile Huong’s fifth novel to be published in America (after No Man’s Land) is a dense, complex exploration of love, loss, and destruction of the personal for a feigned “greater good.” The story focuses on the nameless aging Vietnamese “President” exiled to a mountaintop Buddhist compound under guard, and the steps his government takes to eradicate his personal life and loves. His one genuinely trusted adviser, Vu, has claimed one of the President’s illegitimate sons for his own, hides the President’s daughter so she won’t be killed, and tries to protect the President’s humanity from the escalating violence and dictatorial decisions made by “the government” in the President’s name. Memories flood into flashbacks, which flood into more memories, nesting dolls of internal monologue and speculation. The use of present tense throughout both present action and memory is disorienting, as are the temporal loops. As a result, the theme—inhumanities performed in the name of good—loses resonance. This ambitious novel is frustrating for obscuring characters and ideas under layers of rambling thought, instead of facing the atrocities of mid 20th-century Vietnam head-on. (Aug.)