The Collection of Heng Souk Paperback – January 26, 2017

The Collection of Heng Souk by S.R. Wilsher is a fictional story that takes place 40 years after and during the Vietnam War. Sun (one of the main characters) delivers a box to her uncle, Heng Souk after her father's death. It is during this meeting that Sun takes a notebook written by Ephraim (a POW) from her uncle and reads about the past and what really happened while her uncle was commander of the Citadel (POW Camp).This is a gripping story about love, forgiveness, understanding, and so much more. The emotions of the characters and intensity of the situations within this novel is beautifully written. In fact, it is written so well that you have to be prepared for that which is not written into words. I don't want to write any spoilers so I really can't explain this statement but you will know what I mean once you read it.The story has subplots that connect to the plot. At the beginning of the book (which is where it is the slowest) I wasn't quite sure where the story was going but it didn't take long for it to take off and then there was no putting it down. I found it interesting the way the story came together and how the war affected the men on both sides, others, and the generation to come.The endings were unexpected and by endings I mean the closures for the characters toward the end of the book not necessarily just the very last page of the book. There were many things said and done that I didn't see coming but what Sun did (regarding her husband, Huy) and the closure Thomas provided to his mother was amazing.The characters in the story were believable. Sun was a curious, brave, and smart young women who really knew how to control her temper. Although she had an abusive husband, she seemed like she could hold her own in most situations. She was likable and I found the 'growth' in her character interesting.I hate Heng Souk for what he did to the POWs but at the same time I found him to be a fascinating character. It was almost like he was two separate characters because of what he was like during the war isn't what he is like now. He seemed distant and a mystery (as he was to Sun) throughout the book. He never directly answered many questions yet he answered them (I was expecting a simple "yes" or "no"). Even at the beginning when Sun brought him the box and was going to tell him that his brother (her father) had passed away she eventually tells him that her father had spoke highly of him and his reply was, "We had different skills. People often hold the skills they don't have in high regards." At another point she asked if he thought highly of her father and he replies, "He was my brother." The most notable one to me is at the Citadel when Sun asked if it felt wrong for him to kill the men and he answers, "Few people commit evil without any stain on their conscience. But there are times when your life changes so gradually that you don't realise what you are doing is wrong. The abnormal becomes normal in slow uncertain steps of misfortune and poor judgement; the worst can unwind so slowly that it appears reasonable. But if you want to win wars you need men prepared to do terrible things."Then there is Ephraim Luther and the notebook he wrote while he was being held at the Citadel about himself, Heng Souk, as well as other POWs. Enough was revealed in the notebook about the horrors of being a POW, I was grateful it did not go into vivid details of the treatment, torture, and death of the men. (What is written is sufficient enough to get the point across without making me sick to my stomach.) The notebook also reveals how everything isn't what it seems, even to Heng Souk. It also helps provide a better understanding of the other characters and how the war affected them.I thought I would mention that although I came across a few errors, the author is from the U.K. so there are some spelling differences from "American" English (e.g., realise instead of realize) which to me are not errors at all. Either way you view it, it didn't take away from the story. I did not come across any kind of formatting issues although I should mention that the cover of the book on Amazon is not the cover that I have on my Kindle. The one on Amazon is a picture that I assume is of a Vietnam but the one on my Kindle is a red background with a single (partial) tree that looks to be drawn (vs. photo). I contacted the author and found out that the cover was in fact drawn by his daughter for his book however with the comments he received he changed it. If the cover matters and you got the wrong one I am sure if you contact him he will send you the one on Amazon because he had offered to send to send it to me but I much rather have his daughter's drawing.I have gone over the review for this book for weeks. It is taking me longer to write this than it did to read the whole book because I want to convey the emotion, the thoughts, the feelings, and everything else that was written into this book but even now I still feel I am not expressing it enough. This is a powerful book that I do recommend to those who enjoy history based fiction.

The story opens with Sun returning a gun to her uncle. Her father has just passed away and he had requested that the gun, with a pencil stub jabbed in the end, be returned to an uncle she had never met. While there, she happens upon a diary written by a U.S. captive during the Vietnam war who suffers horrible atrocities at the hands of her uncle. Horrified, but captivated by this man's story, she is determined to read it through to the end, grilling her uncle on it's content along the way. Meanwhile, we are introduced to another character who has just lost the man he thought was his father, only to learn that his real father was killed in Vietnam. His journey to Vietnam collides with Sun's as they both come to grips with the war, the brutality, and the men brutalized at the hands of Sun's uncle. This is a very good story and will keep you interested from beginning to end. I noticed there were complaints about editing errors, but I believe there was an upgrade to this book before I read it so I didn't notice them.

I don’t know who Simon Wilsher is and I have no idea how he could write such an extraordinary novel. What I do know is that this is the best novel I have read in many moons. His sense of character and his ability to bring people to life is remarkable. He uses interior monologues (or introspections), dialogue and, most of all, action to allow the reader to discover the personalities of his characters. But more than this (and creating character is very much of what novel writing is all about) is Wilsher’s sense of plot, of the necessity of structure, which all art has, and the necessity of maintaining a narrative tension that makes the reader turn the page until there are no more pages to turn.So what is this book about? It’s about the brutality of power, the raw horror of the Vietnam War as experienced by both the Americans and the Vietnamese. It’s about love and the dignity of life and the horrible things that humans do to one another. It’s about redemption and forgiveness, and how time can change so much.The title character is a onetime professor at the University of Hanoi who becomes during the Vietnam War an interrogation officer of the communist forces. Wilsher explores his contradictory character beginning with him as a dying old man and then traveling back in time to when he tortured and killed American prisoners of war. His niece, Sun, who is the central female character in the novel, is a doctor married to a controlling and violent man. Against her husband’s wishes she goes to find the old man to give him something and in doing so opens wide the past of his life. The reader along with Sun begins to learn who this man was and why he did what he did; and because of Wilsher’s skill and deep understanding of human emotions we go from loathing to a kind of understanding, although in my case not to the point of forgiveness.The next most important person in the story is the American soldier Ephraim Luther who appears via a notebook he kept during his captivity. He is brutally beaten and forced to dig graves for his fellow American POWs all the while being interrogated by Souk while he wonders if the grave he is digging today is his.But most of all I think we see the story from the point of view of Ephraim Luther’s son Thomas who was born into the generation following those who fought in Vietnam. He goes to Vietnam long after the war is over to find out what happened to his father.What Wilsher does that is so hard to do and so very rare among aspiring novelists is to fashion a meld of character and plot in an artistic and emotionally compelling way. There is nothing fake about the story or anything dictated by contrivance. Wilsher thought this out very well (and/or has a rare gift for plotting) so that what happens is seen by the reader as compelling psychologically and realistically. Part of this is due to foreshadowing which, by the way, is almost a lost art these days. What happens when you foreshadow events as Wilsher does is you include the reader in the discovery so that when something happens the reader either thought it might happen (guessed) or the reader feels that what happens is exactly right. But of course the author must employ a deft and light touch, which Wilsher does.A case in point is the position that the General occupies in the novel. Notice that he doesn’t just serve as window dressing or background color: he is an intricate part of the plot. He begins modestly as a chess partner to the title character, advances to the status of a powerful man, and before the novel is over that power is called into play. Another neat plot point (and a means of leveling cultures) is the fact that two of the characters in the novel—one Vietnamese and the other American—come to find that the man they thought was their father was in fact not their biological father.Finally I would say there is a deep cultural underpinning to this novel emphasizing both the differences between Vietnamese ways and means and those of Americans and the similarities born of the fact that we are all human beings. In the final analysis the story is redemptive among the melancholy remembrances and we experience a sense of catharsis which is part of what literature is all about. —Dennis Littrell, author of “Teddy and Teri” and other works.

One of the few books about war and it's horrible side that I have read. In quite a few places I was crying, then wondering how people can be so bad. The husband and uncle of Sun to name two. At the end things become sad but happy due to the knowledge of previous occurrences. Don't want to spoil it, but would Highly Recommend this book.

I gave this story a 5 star rating because the book kept me interested from he beginning to the end and possibly made me look at people in a different light. There were so many twists and turns and surprising character developments that made me think. Now that is what I call a good read.

Vietnam is a part of world's history that is displayed here through te interactions of 2 men, a prisoner and the prison commandant. The next generation inquires about this war, their parents, and implications on what makes a man. Quite moving and interesting though some details about one of the present heroes is maybe not essential.

Good

I loved this novel. I have been to Hanoi and Halong Bay. The imaginary superb and the way the story is woven exceptional. This book held me totally captivated in the way it was written and executed.