"It is April 1975. The North Vietnamese are marching into Saigon, the Americans are fleeing in helicopters. And in Tatjana Soli’s splendid first novel, “The Lotus Eaters,” a group of Western journalists sip “liberated” Champagne on the roof of the Caravelle Hotel as they reflect on all that has been lost. For Helen, a veteran photographer who made her name covering the war, the resounding absence of planes and artillery has transformed Saigon into an eerie place of “nostalgia and history and failure.” Failed dreams and failed ambitions may be the very stuff from which Vietnam narratives are fashioned; but although Helen’s war is over, there is no guarantee she will be on a plane home. As one of her colleagues says ominously, “The war doesn’t ever have to end for us.” For the interpreters of violence there will always be another war zone with new treasures of heartbreaking stories ...