Marcellino Trương’s novel comprises two stories.
The first is that of a young man from Hà Nội who is conscripted to fight for revolutionary forces during the 1953-1954 period in Việt Nam, a critical time in that country as it sought to break free of French colonial rule.
The novel drops the reader right into the streets of Hà Nội and into the preoccupations of French-educated and privileged Trần Văn Minh, son of a wealthy bureaucrat. We meet him setting out to meet a love interest at his art studio. Not soon after, his father commands him to leave the city to check in on family property in the outskirts of Hà Nội as murmurings of revolutionary activity threaten stability. The crucial decision of the father lands the son into the hands of pro-Hồ Chí Minh forces gathered in the countryside. Minh is caught by these men and, to survive, joins them. They put his “petit bourgeoisie” skill of art and painting to use by assigning him to the propaganda unit as an artist-soldier. How he ends up fighting against the landowning and the pro-French class—a class from which he belongs—while keeping intact his ideals of sharing and equality for all is the novel’s running theme.
The novel speeds along to document Minh’s military and political education and culminates in his participation in the battle at Điện Biên Phủ in northwestern Việt Nam in 1954. The battle both ended French colonial occupation and Minh’s military service. Ultimately, he reunites with his love interest in Hà Nội but as a man changed.
This is a graphic novel of war. If an image is worth a thousand words, then each image and panel here contain multitudes of historic details if looked closely. The author paints a landscape of shifting allegiances in a region once called Indochina and shows just enough violence without glorifying it. He renders his characters with enough humanity to make them bearable—and in a few cases, even relatable—given the region’s histories of domination and conquest.
One senses the author’s modern sensitivities: he recognizes same-sex attraction in Minh’s artistic comrades in the propaganda unit and the contributions and physical work of women in the war effort. If Trương’s philosophical statement can be discerned, it is this: war’s costs are borne by all and the desires for dignity and emancipation can be argued by all even if the means of achieving them differ.
The second story in the novel is implied. It represents the narrative of the Vietnamese diaspora, of ordinary men and women fleeing war and conflict. It is a narrative that raises the timeless question: From where do we come?
