This fictional memoir-style novel told by a Chinese soldier taken prisoner by the US army during the Korean war, perhaps as a reflection of its mild-mannered, insightful, educated narrator, rolls forward in the chronologic, episodic manner of a real-life historical account. Jin incorporates detail-rich swaths of political and historical interest to ensure that the typical American reader learns something new about the aptly-named “Forgotten War”. Since the episodic nature of history doesn’t always make for gripping reading, Jin employs a novelistic technique--the reoccurring image of the narrator's anti-American tattoo--to build tension, pique the readers’ curiosity, and ultimately pull them through what might be an otherwise dry read.

The only time-jump in this chronologically-told novel is its flash-forward prologue, in which the aged narrator tells of his first (and probably last) visit to the US to see his grandchildren, and his fear that he will be strip-searched at US immigration and barred from entering the country, even though “like a talisman, the tattoo has protected me in China for almost five decades.” The tattoo makes its long-awaited reappearance about halfway through the novel, after the politically moderate narrator finds himself tossed into a US prisoner of war compound controlled internally by pro-communist Chinese prisoners, but not in the way we expect, and the tension continues to build, but gradually.

Two things surprised me about this novel. The first is that previously mentioned gradual pace, which, considering what should be sensational and violent subject matter; the ever-collected narrator seems to bring a calm, almost zen-like balance to the story. My second surprise is at how little of this is actually fiction. After reading about a US general's abduction by his prisoners, and US tanks firing into a POW compound, I had to do a little research. Turns out, these incidents actually occurred but were (and here's my third surprise) covered up in the aftermath. The names have been changed, but the details are accurate down to the general clinging to the gate for his life. Which should make you want to read the book, if you haven't yet!

The re-occurrence of the tattoo is significant because it is the only element that threads through the story from beginning to end and ties it off at the end. Without it, suspense within the novel’s arc would be fleeting as the narrator moves from the army, to hospital, to a string of POW camps, all replete with their own cast of characters, most of whom are not fleshed out and disappear from the story for good once the narrator moves on. The story is well written, the character likeable yet flawed, and overcomes its own episodic nature and the not-quite suffocating amounts of historical background. That raw, reoccurring image of a mangled tattoo drags us through the narrative like a carrot on a string—and the reader with it—to the last page.