In The Fabled East [Hardcover]

Adam Lewis Schroeder’s second novel  ranges from France at the turn of the 20th century to French Indochina in the 1930s. Weaving together a host of narrators and timelines, the story primarily follows the paths of two characters: Adélie Tremier and Pierre Lazarie. Adélie is a young widow suffering from tuberculosis. In 1909, she abandons her Parisian home in search of a fabled spring of immortality deep in the forests of Laos. Lazarie, meanwhile, is a romantic academic turned Saigon bureaucrat who in 1936 is sent by Adélie’s army captain son to find his long-lost mother.

The novel’s strength lies in its descriptions; the focus is on immersing the reader in a place, rather than on the plot itself. Poetic turns of phrase abound, as in Lazarie’s assessment of the East: “It is one thing to wander through Saigon to the clangour of automobile horns and say to oneself, ‘This is the East’; it is quite another to whisper it as a thousand-year-old temple juts out from a hillside to vanish the next moment behind the jungle canopy. ‘The East’ is an ever-fleeting thing.” These vivid descriptions give the reader the impression of experiencing foreign environments first-hand.

The many different time frames and locales lend the novel an almost mythic feel, but the narrative shifts are too frequent and abrupt, making it difficult for the reader to become fully engaged in the often slow-paced plot.

"Schroeder's dexterity, using multiple narrators, turns [In the Fabled East] into a risky literary enterprise well worth the journey...With this young writer, in addition to characters you want to hang out-with (or eavesdrop on), you'll get an engrossing, frequently surprising plot to keep you second-guessing. You'll also get a new appreciation for how good the English language really is in the hands of a literary acrobat. Perhaps most importantly, you'll get so immersed in the world he creates that it might take some time to emerge from it." (BC Bookworld 20100724)

"No other writer gets the heat, the chaos, the shimmering otherness of the East quite like Penticton's Adam Lewis Schroeder. His second novel, In the Fabled East, is a witty romp through colonial Indochina that focuses on two French nationals separated by time and gender...united partly by war, partly by dissolution of empire, but mainly by a mother-and-child reunion." (Nancy Wigston Toronto Star 20100306)

"Schroeder deliciously conjures the mad, hot, stinking confusion that is Indochine, the jumble of native and colonial customs, the bullock carts, betel juice, rickshaws and rice pounders alongside white linen suits, afternoon cocktails and louche French girls with their tennis games and sunstroke. A book to read, a writer to watch." (Kate Wallace Telegraph-Journal 20100123)

"A novel of profound intelligence and wit, deftly weaving history and myth, male and female, East and West, agony and splendour. In the Fabled East is a stunning book." (Annabel Lyon, author of "The Golden Mean" 20100123)

"Fable, history and the lure of the story: all take their turn in this funny, profound and stunningly intelligent book. In the Fabled East is a madcap adventure, a sly, gregarious novel that tempts us, passionately, into the invisible realms." (Madeleine Thien 20100312)

"In the Fabled East is a sublime and often hilarious travel adventure." (Toro Magazine 20100330)

"How welcome is an enjoyable novel that seems so unapologetically on the wrong side of today's literary and cultural politics! " (Globe & Mail 20100401)

"Schroeder is a sensitive, postcolonial Canadian alert to the facades erected by suffering natives and bluff imperialists alike." (Georgia Straight 20100430)

"The novel's strength lies in its descriptions; the focus is on immersing the reader in a place." (Quill & Quire 20100501)

"The 'fabled' in the title is a meaningful indicator...the characters fashioned out of varying cultural interpretations of the East in their time periods. The contrast of real and imagined, mythic and stereotypic, is pervasive...But as historical fiction, the novel isn't really a critique of that era as much as it is of that era...I rooted for the characters to achieve...a happy ending amidst Schroeder's imaginative largesse." (Vancouver Review 20100508)

"In the Fabled East blends compelling realism with a naturalistic approach to myth and magic realism...Schroeder creates a novel that, while rich in echoes of works like Heart of Darkness and Lost Horizon, is breathtakingly original and shockingly powerful...Simply put, In the Fabled East, is a winner, drawing on disparate elements to create a singular, stunning whole." (Vancouver Sun )

In the Fabled East, from one of Canada's best young voices, comes a sweeping literary adventure set against the backdrop of French Indochina Paris, 1909: Adélie Tremier, a young widow suffering the final stages of tuberculosis, flees for French-occupied Indochina, through the lush forests of Laos, to seek out a fabled spring of immortality that might allow her to return to her nine-year-old son. Laos, 1936: Pierre Lazarie, a young academic turned Saigon bureaucrat, is sent by Adélie's son, now an Army captain, to find his longlost mother. Although his assigned quest fulfills Pierre's fantasy to travel up the exotic Mekong, he is saddled with his colleague Henri LeDallic, an Indochina old-timer who would rather glory in his loutish past than hunt for ghosts in the jungle. Yet what this mismatched pair discovers forms the mysterious heart of Adam Lewis Schroeder's brilliant and compelling new novel. Bridging history from 1890s Aix-en-Provence to American involvement in 1950s Vietnam, In the Fabled East is a rich and sensual depiction of Southeast Asia, charting the loss of innocence of both individuals and the world at large. Echoing Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, this is historical fiction written with wisdom and panache.

(20100615)

Adam Lewis Schroeder was born in BC, completed a Master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and has since traveled extensively. He is the author of the story collection Kingdom of Monkeys and the novel Empress of Asia, nominated for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the BC Book Awards' Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In the Fabled East was first released in March 2010 to great review. He lives in Penticton with his wife and two sons.