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Book of the Day: The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam

Wednesday, Apr 25, 2012 at 9:32am

I'm very excited to tell you about Vincent Lam's new novel. You may recall that Lam surprised us all when he won the Giller Prize in 2006 for his collection of short stories, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. That was a very good collection of short stories but "The Giller?" we all thought, "Really?"

Well the talents of Vincent Lam as well as his win are now fully established in my mind after reading The Headmaster's Wager. This novel tells the story of Percival Chen, the headmaster of the most respected English school in Saigon. He is also a bon vivant, a compulsive gambler and an incorrigible womanizer. He is well accustomed to bribing a forever-changing list of government officials in order to maintain the elite status of the Chen Academy. He is fiercely proud of his Chinese heritage, and quick to spot the business opportunities rife in a divided country. He devotedly ignores all news of the fighting that swirls around him, choosing instead to read the faces of his opponents at high-stakes mahjong tables. But when his only son gets in trouble with the Vietnamese authorities, Percival faces the limits of his connections and wealth and is forced to send him away. In the loneliness that follows, Percival finds solace in Jacqueline, a beautiful woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage, and Laing Jai, a son born to them on the eve of the Tet offensive. Percival's new-found happiness is precarious, and as the complexities of war encroach further and further into his world, he must confront the tragedy of all he has refused to see.

The Globe and Mail has already reported that The Headmaster's Wager "has [the] makings of a masterpiece." I don't use that word very much but I can confirm that Lam's new novel is a powerful work and one of the best Canadian novels I've read in a while.

Categories: New Releases, Literature, Book of the Day

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See:

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

- Vincent Lam

Trade paperback $19.95
Reader Reward Price: $17.96

Winner of the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize

An astonishing literary debut centred around four students as they apply to medical school, qualify as doctors and face the realities of working in medicine, from a powerful voice in fiction.

Following the interlinked stories of a group of medical students and the unique challenges they face, from the med school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evac missions, and terrifying new viruses. Riveting, convincing and precise, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures looks with rigorous honesty at the lives of doctors and their patients, bringing us to a deeper understanding of the challenges and temptations that surge around us all.

In this masterful collection, Vincent Lam weaves together black humour, investigations of both common and extraordinary moral dilemmas, and a sometimes shockingly realistic portrait of today's medical profession.