by Lily Tuck
First published 2000
Claire came to Bangkok as the wife of a government contractor, expecting a predictable expatriate life in 1960s Thailand. At a dinner party, she meets Jim Thompson, the charismatic American who built a silk empire in Southeast Asia. Their encounter draws her into Bangkok's glittering social circle and away from her conventional marriage. When Thompson mysteriously disappears during a holiday in Malaysia, Claire's carefully ordered world collapses. The Vietnam War rages nearby, casting shadows over the American community in Thailand. Claire must navigate the aftermath of Thompson's vanishing while confronting what his absence reveals about her own desires and the fragile nature of the life she has built so far from Boston. Her search for answers becomes a reckoning with the choices that brought her to Southeast Asia and the person she has become there.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, asian-american
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, search-for-answers
Setting: Bangkok, Malaysia, Boston, Southeast Asia
Period: 1960s
192 pages · Paperback · Plume