From Publishers Weekly
Nothing symbolized the internal decay of the British Empire more than the fall of its crown jewel in the East, Singapore, "the impregnable fortress," to a relatively small force of Japanese in 1942. Loh's first novel uses the recent revelation that the British air force was betrayed to the Japanese by a British officer, Patrick Heenan, to spin a complex tale that exemplifies Sun Tzu's saying, "all warfare is based on deception." Most of Loh's story circles out from and loops back to a central sequence: the graphic torture of Claude Lim by Japanese interrogators. Claude's pain triggers a visionary experience, in which he is able to "see" the recent actions of the rest of the characters. Claude's father, Humphrey, a senior bank official, is such a confirmed Anglophile he doesn't even teach his boy Chinese; while his mother, Cynthia, takes assimilation to the extent of having affairs with white men. These include Jack Winchester, a recent arrival, who represents a new English consciousness: vaguely guilty about Britain's past history of racism, but acting with the unconscious superiority that arises from that history. Claude is volunteered-by his father-to serve as Jack's guide to Singapore; in this way, they become "friends." Meanwhile, Han Ling-li, a nurse, has been hired as a secret agent to supply the British with information about Japanese strategy. Ling-li, a nationalist, opposes the British, but prefers them to the Japanese. Unfortunately, her opposite number, British officer Patrick Heenan, is more successful spying for Japan. The convergence of Jack, Claude and Ling-li as the city implodes during the siege initiates Claude's reconciliation with his ethnic past. Loh's prose is sometimes cliche-Claude's torturer sounds like a movie villain: "But we have ways, you know, of breaking down barriers and extracting information." Despite such lapses, this is a solid and moving accomplishment. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In her first novel, Breaking the Tongue, Vyvyane Loh elegantly chronicles a young man's coming of age during the fall of Singapore in World War II. Along the way, she explores such concepts as loyalty to one's family and country, the place of language in culture, and the roles of race, racism and ethnicity in how we perceive ourselves and others. In doing so, she has skillfully touched on questions at the very heart of politics, culture and global relations today.Loh narrates the book through the eyes of Claude Lim -- a young man from a fine, upstanding Chinese family -- who is undergoing a brutal interrogation at the hands of the Japanese. Claude, with his perfect English and seemingly assured future at Oxford, can't believe what's happening. To be mistaken for someone Chinese -- "dirty," "crude" and "superstitious" -- is the worst insult he could endure, and yet here he is, undergoing torture for being the very thing he loathes. In an effort to protect what he might know, Claude takes a page from his grandmother's bible, General Sun Tzu's The Art of War: "All warfare is based on deception." As knives slash his face and he hears his friends being tortured in the next room, he unwittingly comes to realize that the Fifth Columnist who turned him in already knows -- "the truth has countless permutations." So Claude looks back and tells his story -- at times shielding the ones he loves, at times exposing their worst secrets. His father, Humphrey, "infatuated by the idea of Empire," speaks English-accented English, works in an English bank, and forces his family to sit on the veranda every sweltering afternoon for English high tea, believing that if they become fully Anglicized then they will be accepted by the British as equals. Claude's mother, Cynthia, is so filled with self-loathing that she burns the inside of her wrists -- and those of the Englishmen to whom she is an "exotic" conquest -- with cigarettes. Sister Lucy, like Claude, is so distanced from who she is that she's been known to proclaim "I'm not Chinese!" This privileged family, with its belief in the merits of English rule, is in for a rude awakening.Soon enough the family flees the capital for the safety of a farm in the countryside, leaving Claude behind to care for a sick friend, Jack Winchester -- a Brit who, until war broke out, moved surely through the thronging crowds, fully confident in his position. Claude is virtually useless in his attempts to care for Jack until he meets Ling-li, a Chinese nurse and sometime spy, who helps them both but in very different ways. If, lying limp, prostrate and indefinite in his illness, Jack is a symbol of the fall of the British Empire, then Ling-li, who is difficult, persistent and relentless in her ability to endure, is a symbol of Asia. Ling-li patronizes Claude for being immature and naive, and lets Jack know that he is just another burdensome white man and that Asia must be for Asians.Even as Claude tells his interrogators of his time spent with Ling-li and Jack, the Fifth Columnist is simultaneously using many of the same facts to create a parallel tale of spying, intrigue and betrayal. Several real-life personages make appearances, including Patrick Heenan, a "mongrel" of East Indian and Irish descent, who realizes that his natal cultures have no use for him, and not only embraces the Japanese but finds that they return his affection; eventually he becomes the traitor who betrays British defense plans to his new friends. Loh writes through shadows cast by Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, E.M. Forster and what can be assumed to be personal experience to add layer upon layer of texture -- the suffocating heat and humidity of the tropics, doses of curry and gin, native peoples astutely aware of the foolishness of the white men who rule over them, and the pettiness of those colonials who know that their lives are far better "out there" than back home living in a cold-water flat, working in a dead-end job, limited by class accent, unable to afford servants and chauffeurs. Loh sees it all through the polyglot culture that is Singapore, where English, Malay, Thai, Tamil, Tagalog, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hindi, Farsi, Nepalese and Hainanese create a cacophony of sound on the street. Loh understands that within that cacophony are individual voices, each with a unique point of view.Putting aside obvious comparisons to recent activity in the Middle East and elsewhere, readers will find issues of a far more introspective nature. Singapore may have been one of the more diverse places in the world 60 years ago, but today the United States is arguably the most diverse place on the earth. How do we identify ourselves, and how do others identify us? Are we our face, our blood, our clothes, our language, our citizenship? These questions confront everyday people like the Harvard-educated doctor who's mistaken for a redneck because of his Southern accent or the Wall Street executive who can't get a taxi because he's African American, as well as folks like Michael Jackson, Eminem, John Walker Lindh and even Tiger Woods. In a novel about what happened on a small island in the midst of worldwide upheaval, Loh not only sees how individuals -- with all of their hopes and dreams, strengths and weaknesses -- move through history, but has also used them well to illuminate the present. Reviewed by Lisa SeeCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Booklist
On the eve of World War II, Claude Lim, a Chinese youth, uncertain of himself and his nationality, is being raised in a family that strongly identifies with the British colonists in Singapore. The family neither speaks nor understands Chinese and is proud of that fact. Their placid lives are disturbed by the hodgepodge of Asians, Eurasians, and British expatriates shifting in their roles and political sensibilities as the threat of invasion approaches. Prickly, pretentious Claude slowly metamorphoses into a young man with a budding Chinese identity and a wisdom wrought from the tortures and tragedies of war. His parents, Humphrey and Cynthia, cannot bring themselves to accept the changes all around them. Grandma Siok's cultural ties offer the only practical survival skills for the family until Claude meets Ling-Li, a nurse with incredible acumen among the spies, fifth columnists, and nationalists struggling to position themselves in the social upheaval to come. Loh tells an incredibly powerful story of national upheaval, imperial decline, and a young man's coming-of-age from the perspectives of several finely drawn characters. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Andrea Barrett
In the tradition of Rushdie or Ondaatje, this is one of the most accomplished first novels I've ever seen.


Claire Messud
Vyvyane Loh's richly ambitious narrative weaves the personal and the political into an unforgettable novel.


Lan Samantha Chang
Vyvyane Loh's exhilarating first novel is a searing, vivid historical work of tremendous originality....a breathtaking new voice of great power.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is one Chinese family. Claude, the son, raised along with his sister to be more British than the British, is profoundly ashamed of his own heritage. Humphrey, the father whose allegiance to the Empire blinds him to the idea of defeat, is also blind to the afternoon assignations of his decorative wife, Cynthia. Observing both the family and the larger landscape is the redoubtable Grandma Siok, whose sage advice and quotations from the ancient Art of War fall on deaf ears. And then there is Ling-Li, the elusive young woman - part nurse, part warrior - who guards secrets.

When the British defenses crumble, so too does Claude's world. Beset by war, betrayal, and, finally, torture, he is forced to acknowledge and embrace his true identity.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

In her first novel, Breaking the Tongue, Vyvyane Loh elegantly chronicles a young man's coming of age during the fall of Singapore in World War II. Along the way, she explores such concepts as loyalty to one's family and country, the place of language in culture, and the roles of race, racism and ethnicity in how we perceive ourselves and others. In doing so, she has skillfully touched on questions at the very heart of politics, culture and global relations today. — Lisa See

Publishers Weekly

Nothing symbolized the internal decay of the British Empire more than the fall of its crown jewel in the East, Singapore, "the impregnable fortress," to a relatively small force of Japanese in 1942. Loh's first novel uses the recent revelation that the British air force was betrayed to the Japanese by a British officer, Patrick Heenan, to spin a complex tale that exemplifies Sun Tzu's saying, "all warfare is based on deception." Most of Loh's story circles out from and loops back to a central sequence: the graphic torture of Claude Lim by Japanese interrogators. Claude's pain triggers a visionary experience, in which he is able to "see" the recent actions of the rest of the characters. Claude's father, Humphrey, a senior bank official, is such a confirmed Anglophile he doesn't even teach his boy Chinese; while his mother, Cynthia, takes assimilation to the extent of having affairs with white men. These include Jack Winchester, a recent arrival, who represents a new English consciousness: vaguely guilty about Britain's past history of racism, but acting with the unconscious superiority that arises from that history. Claude is volunteered-by his father-to serve as Jack's guide to Singapore; in this way, they become "friends." Meanwhile, Han Ling-li, a nurse, has been hired as a secret agent to supply the British with information about Japanese strategy. Ling-li, a nationalist, opposes the British, but prefers them to the Japanese. Unfortunately, her opposite number, British officer Patrick Heenan, is more successful spying for Japan. The convergence of Jack, Claude and Ling-li as the city implodes during the siege initiates Claude's reconciliation with his ethnic past. Loh's prose is sometimes clich d-Claude's torturer sounds like a movie villain: "But we have ways, you know, of breaking down barriers and extracting information." Despite such lapses, this is a solid and moving accomplishment. (Mar.) Forecast: Booksellers can recommend this debut to fans of Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire or Michael Ondaatje. Strong reviews could lead to brisk sales, primed by a seven-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This extraordinary first novel centers on the intricate tale of Claude, a member of a Chinese family raised to spurn his heritage and position himself to embrace the customs and mores of the British ruling Singapore. The novel is grand in scope, covering such highly charged topics as mythology, race, class, family duty, loyalty, torture, and war. The cast of characters is equally grand, with a large troupe coming from all over the globe. Loh interjects distinct voices in the form of Englishman Jack Winchester; Claude's mother, who has a penchant for English gentlemen; and the wise grandmother whose wisdom and experience is not always acknowledged. At novel's end, Claude finally embraces his heritage. Using Singapore's fall to Japan in World War II as its backdrop, this masterly novel is not only bold and challenging but also beautifully written. The reader will be left breathless by the ending. A definite plus for public libraries where weighty historical or literary fiction does well. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/03.]-Christopher J. Korenowsky, Columbus Metropolitan Lib. Syst. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews