Q&A with Jacquie Pham

 

 

 

Jacquie Pham is the author of the new novel Those Opulent Days. She lives in Sydney, Australia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Those Opulent Days, and how did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: The idea came to me during a very long reading slump. None of the books I picked up seemed to speak to me, and I thought, why not write a book I’d love to read.

 

I knew from the start that the setting would be Vietnam because I wanted to tell a story beyond the infamous Vietnam War and the refugee experiences that are widely portrayed in mainstream media.

 

And it just so happened that I went to a middle school located in Ha Noi, Vietnam, that was established in 1917 by the French authorities. I was taught about the school’s history, and being surrounded by original colonial architecture like French doors and symmetrical design, the era of the French Occupation of Vietnam has always been at the back of my mind.

 

I started doing more research about that era and came across two wealthy successful businessmen—a Chinese Vietnamese real estate tycoon named Hua Bon Hoa, the inspiration behind Cao Hai Duy, and Truong Van Ben, an entrepreneur who established a rubber plantation in Dong Thap Muoi, the inspiration behind Khai Minh.

 

From here, I started toying with the fictional idea of them being childhood best friends and what would happen if one of them were murdered. The rest of the novel grew from that kernel of an idea and Those Opulent Days came to life.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: The research process for Those Opulent Days involves a lot of recalling and fact-checking, because the details are what I was already taught at school—the reality under colonial rule, who held the real power at the time, the social hierarchy.

 

I started by rereading my old history textbooks (yes, my mom keeps everything!).

 

I want to ensure the stories about the mistreatments toward the working class weren’t in any way minimized or exaggerated, so for the next few months, I also scoured the Internet for articles written in both English and Vietnamese.

 

I came across photographs of the working and living conditions at rubber plantations and opium factories. Those scenes were so haunting that I knew I had to include them in the book. The workers there were not named, but I wish for them to be remembered.

Q: The writer Ilana Masad said of the book, “Rather than being a mystery, the novel has far more in common with noir: It examines the dark griminess that is part and parcel of the spectrum of humanity.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I agree with the description! The murder mystery element aside, at its core, Those Opulent Days is a historical fiction, so it’s important to me to convey the period’s authenticity.

 

During the French colonization of Vietnam, the Nguyen emperors, with their seemingly endless wealth, held symbolic power, surrendering real control to the French administration.

 

Back then, foreign people were placed on this pedestal of advanced civilization, and I wanted the friend group—the focal point of the novel—to also reflect that power dynamic.

 

At the end of the day, while other components like wealth, knowledge, influence can certainly enhance power, they are just that, a means to an end, whereas power is an end in itself.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: My initial intention is to reflect the main character’s sentiment at the end of the novel, when he recalls the happier times of his life, so the title idea has come to me quite organically.

 

And the more I think about it, the more I appreciate the underlying implication: like many people, I also sometimes romanticize historical periods—like the Renaissance, the Roaring Twenties.

 

I remember there was a trend across multiple media platforms at one point, where users would claim they were born in the wrong era, idealizing the aesthetics of an older generation. But in doing so, we inadvertently neglect the tragedies that unfolded in those timelines.

 

It’s important to me to highlight the power imbalance and economic disparities that existed amidst the opulence of 1920s French-colonial Vietnam elite society, because there is nothing archaic about colonialization.

 

And it’s up to younger generations to keep telling the stories, not to hold grudges or anything like that, but to remind people of what happened. And just maybe we can all look back and think that we can—and we should—be better than that.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently working on my second novel, which will be quite different from Those Opulent Days, in that it’s set in contemporary Vietnam.

 

My main goal in my work is to change readers’ immediate association when mentioning Vietnamese people or Vietnam in general. I don’t want for Vietnam or Vietnamese people to be associated with the infamous Vietnam War all the time, or with the refugee experience.

 

They are extremely important to talk about, but I also want readers to see Vietnamese people like any other people: they can be extremely complex and layered and resilient. They don’t necessarily have to be associated with the worst thing that has happened to them.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my work!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb