July 2, 2012
Fay’s debut novel is a thrilling mix of adventure and personal discovery set in Southeast Asia in the 1920s. At the behest of her manipulative mentor, Henry Simms, unappreciated 29-year-old Irene Blum quits her job at Seattle’s Brooke Museum and heads to Shanghai to persuade scholar-turned-revolutionary Simone Merlin to join her on a quest to locate 10 ancient Khmer scrolls, which discovery would allow Irene to open her own museum and finally get credit for her work and expertise. But when the duo find themselves with blood on their hands, they flee Shanghai and escape to the jungle. As they continue their hunt for the scrolls—pursued by authorities and keepers of Cambodia’s cultural assets—they take on additional team members. Soon, each person’s motives come to light, and secrets from the past begin to surface and threaten the mission. Setting the fraught inner terrain of her characters against the dynamic political and physical landscapes of the area, Fay crafts an intricate page-turner that will keep readers breathless and guessing. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, Linda Chester Literary.
Starred review from August 1, 2012
Fay's extraordinary first novel has everything great historical-adventure fiction shoulda strikingly original setting, exhilarating plot twists, and a near-impossible quest. It stands out even more with its one-of-a-kind characters and sensitivity to colonialism's harsh effects on the local populace, although its gutsy protagonist doesn't initially share this concern. In 1925, Irene Blum arrives in Shanghai with a map and a mission to venture deep into Cambodia to find 10 copper scrolls containing the as-yet-unknown history of the vanished Khmer civilization. Upset after losing a museum curatorship to a male colleague, Irene needs the scrolls to fulfill her ambitions in the art world. On her mentor's advice, she recruits the help of Simone Merlin, whose linguistic and temple-robbing knowledge is counterbalanced by her drug addiction and abusive, Communist-supporting husband. Others join them, and their quest becomes an odyssey of personal discovery that tests Irene's physical and psychological endurance. Every word of this evocative literary expedition feels deliberately chosen, each phrase full of meaning. From the murky Shanghai underworld, in which information is traded like currency, to the isolated Cambodian jungle, whose overheated air is thick with mistrust, Fay brilliantly imagines a singular heroine who forges her own path through an unfamiliar country.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)