Plot
In the early 1980s, the narrator and his blood brother Bon are allowed to leave the re-education camp in Vietnam and arrive in Paris via Jakarta. They are picked up by the narrator's "aunt", a French-Vietnamese communist sympathizer who formerly passed on the narrator's secret letters to the North Vietnam intelligence. The narrator and Bon begin to work for "the Boss", the leader of a local crime syndicate that is run out of an Asian restaurant. They begin to sell hashish and cocaine, the latter which the narrator nicknames "the Remedy".
Bon persuades the narrator to join the Vietnamese Union in order to investigate it for communists. While delivering drugs, the narrator is attacked by two rival French-Algerian gangsters that the narrator nicknames Rolling Stones and Beatles. He recovers in Heaven, a brothel guarded by a black, well-read man who introduces him to Fanon and Césaire. He meets Madeleine, a Cambodian prostitute, and the Ronin, a partner of the Boss. The narrator recovers from his injuries and the Boss gives him an apartment to share with Bon. The narrator is invited to a discussion with his aunt, a local French politician nicknamed BFD and an intellectual nicknamed the Maoist PhD, where they discuss the Cambodian genocide and the excesses of communism. The discussion turns heated, and the narrator uses the Remedy to cope.
When the narrator returns to drug dealing, he is kidnapped by the French-Algerians and tortured by Beatles and another man the narrator nicknames the Mona Lisa. The narrator is forced to play Russian Roulette, and it is revealed after six attempts that the chamber is empty. Le Cao Boi and the Ronin kill Beatles and rescue the narrator while the Mona Lisa escapes. The Ronin tells the narrator that he had found him with the help of an old Indochina hand that was previously in military intelligence, who inserted a tracker into the narrator's shoe. The narrator is taken to a private sanitarium in the Parisian countryside to recover, which the narrator nicknames Paradise.
The aunt persuades the narrator to stay with her after his "nervous breakdown". Bon tells him that the faceless man, the commissar of their re-education camp, is visiting Paris and that Bon intends to kill him. Additionally, the narrator's former lover Lana will be performing at Fantasia, a Vietnamese concert that the faceless man will attend. At the after-party of a cultural performance by the Vietnamese Union, the aunt introduces the narrator to the lawyer of Pol Pot, and they discuss whether the unforgivable can be forgiven. Later, the narrator overhears the aunt and the lawyer having sex and reflects on his sexual prowess. In the morning, the aunt introduces the narrator to feminist literature including Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva. The narrator meets Madeleine again and performs oral sex on her. The Ronin tells the narrator that they have found the Mona Lisa, and they kidnap and torture him in a warehouse. The narrator refuses to torture him, instead discussing French colonialism with the Mona Lisa before telling him that the narrator forgives him.
The Boss organizes a colonial-themed orgy that the narrator attends as serving staff. The invited guests are white, wealthy and powerful men, some who are in blackface. The prostitutes from Heaven are dressed as various sexual caricatures of French colonies from Tunisia to Indochina to Tahiti, and are presented to the guests in the form of an auction. The event is revealed to be an elaborate plan by the Boss to blackmail the men involved using tapes of the recorded orgy. The Boss, the Ronin, Le Cao Boi, and the narrator return to the Mona Lisa and interrogate him to no avail.
When the Boss is about to kill the Mona Lisa, two masked gunmen enter and kill him, the Ronin, and Le Cao Boi. They reveal themselves to be Rolling Stones and Saïd, the Mona Lisa's older brother. The Mona Lisa asks Saïd to spare the narrator's life, and he is allowed to escape. He goes to the Boss's apartment where he is confronted by the Boss's secretary. They unlock the Boss's safe and divide the money. The narrator leaves half of his share with the sleeping Madeleine.
The narrator goes to Opium, the Boss's new bar where Fantasia is due to be performed. He meets Bon, Bon's lover Loan, and Lana, who reveals that their tryst had resulted in a three-year old daughter. During the Fantasia performance, Bon and the narrator pursue the faceless man to the bathroom, then the narrator drives Bon and the faceless man to the Asian restaurant.
In the empty restaurant, the faceless man reveals his true identity as Man, the blood brother that Bon had thought died in Saigon. However, Bon refuses to believe him, so the narrator reveals his identity as a former North Vietnamese spy. In his despair, Bon commits suicide. Man returns to Vietnam and the narrator is checked into Paradise, where he writes his second confession which is read by his aunt, the Maoist PhD, and the lawyer. A shadow enters the narrator's room and is revealed to be Claude, the Indochina hand that was the narrator's previous mentor. Claude aims a gun at the narrator while offering him whiskey, and commands him to remove the mask from his face.
