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Underscoring her cultural straddle, one does not know whether to call her Ms. There are also large sections describing the horrors visited upon her, and other civilians, by both sides, the Viet Cong, as well as the ARVN. Certainly if this is true, it fits into a larger pattern of books that purport to be "true stories" that range from an embroidery of actual events to a complete fabrication (see books ranging from "A Million Little Pieces" to "Love and Consequences"). Internal strife within the movement eventually forced her to the other side, and she tried to survive, associated with Americans. So, it is very much to Ms. Le, or Mrs. After she experienced the French war as a small girl, she would eventually become a dedicated cadre of the Viet Cong. Oliver Stone made this book into a most moving movie, staring Tommy Lee Jones and Hiep Thi Le.There is no question that all events in the book did occur during this terrible conflict, but I question if they actually occurred to her.
This review is posted under both editions. Le's credit that she is willing to discuss this deeply personal, and in many ways humiliating matter. She eventually manages to escape this nightmare by marrying an American, many years her senior, and emigrating to the United States. I was not near Da Nang during the war (I was further south, in Binh Dinh province, and in the Central Highlands), but I note with much interest the review posted by James Chaffee who was there, and details numerous discrepancies in the book which have not been answered. Also, another reviewer, Sonia Haya shares the sentiment that this is not a totally accurate memoir, but tends more to be a historical novel. Even there she is pursued by the on-going ramifications of that conflict, including the suicide of that husband.
Concerning her perspective, consider that during the trial of the American soldiers involved in the My Lai massacre, not a single Vietnamese was called to testify. And, of course, there are others. Part of the ultimate strength of the book is in the chapter, "To sell my body," in which she describes her life as a prostitute, the only viable way she could earn a livelihood. Her book is a very important one, if for no other reason than she tells of the Vietnam War(s) from the point of view of a Vietnamese female who has lived in both the Vietnamese and American culture, and experienced both the French war (and she still has nightmares of her first experience with one of their mercenaries from Morocco) and the American war. Hayslip.
This is one of the most underreported (for some obvious reasons) aspects of the American involvement in Vietnam; the creation of an immense pool of "comfort women." Various articles have appeared in American news journals over the last decade concerning the compensation issue to Korean women who served in the same role to Japanese troops in the Second World War, but there has never been mention of compensation by Americans to these women. My "gut" feeling is that 50% of the events in the book actually happened to the author, and the other 50% are a composite of actual events that happened to others, and for this reason, despite the fact that she has written a good book, describing issues that are certainly underreported, I can only give the book a 4-star rating. This book was originally written in English, and published as "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places." I was in France at the time, purchased the French edition, with the not quite literally translated title of "Entre le ciel et la terre," but with a much more evocative cover. It was as though they were only the background, unable to state what had happened to them, and thus the books on the Vietnamese experience in the war, and there are now several by women, are all the more valuable.
Her experience constitutes another "Book of Job," yet she is compelled to return to the country, during the first opening to the West, in 1986, to see her relatives.
I felt that I had been duped and the story appears as a historical novel ("American Diaries" for adults) with the intent to provide the reader with a general feel of Viet Nam during the war, not a factual memoir. Oddly, Le Ly either experienced firsthand or had a family member who experienced nearly every imaginable situation during the Viet Nam War - every demographic is represented. While the "memoir" provides an interesting and informative view of life inside Viet Nam during the war, taken as a whole with a dose of critical thinking it left me with questions of its validity. The story is interesting and the writing is great. Having an immediate family member involved in every existing faction, being raped so many times the reader loses count, being victimized in some way in every situation, marrying an aged American and receiving a financial windfall, and portraying her reception by 2 government officials in Viet Nam in 1986 as an American diplomat offering opportunities to improve relations between the countries was absurd to me.
Unfortunately, her mother has not aged well, and her own siblings and former companions no longer trust her, as they thought she shouldn't of married foreigners and left the country. The father is the landlord, Anh. People may say she was too young to have logged all of the tragic political events and two kids at twenty, but it's really paid off now: the three sons all went to college when she hit forty, and she no longer has to worry about her life in the past or present.Her writing style was confusing, and I do wish she had organized the more recent trip back to Vietnam and what happened in her early life better. It was interesting to learn how Vietnamese people lived in their country during such a long and harsh war. The following year, Hayslip gives birth to her son after she begins working for a wealthy Vietnamese family. As politicial views of neighboring residents shifted, Hayslip and village children are approached by Vietcong. She and her mother leave their village for Da Nang, but soon move to Saigon. However, the family lived in a community near the fault line between Northern and Southern Vietnam.
Hayslip's attitude towards all of it, though, was even more remarkable. Despite the fact that he is almost three times her age, Hayslip has another son with Mundro. Racial tensions and awkwardness are still present.It was incredibly heartbreaking for me to learn that someone would have to go through all this. Her family does not approve of him, but he announces his plans to wed Hayslip and bring her to live in California with him.Right after her twentieth birthday, Hayslip is living in San Diego with two young sons. Just two years after their arrival, Munro becomes severely ill with emphysema. If anybody ever wanted to know, read Hayslip's works.
Throughout it all, when Hayslip's son is around three years old, her father commits suicide, which shocks and upsets the family. For that, four stars. After several failed relationships, Hayslip meets Ed Munro in 1969. As the youngest of seven, Hayslip (born Phung Le Ly) grew up in a small village in rural central Vietnam, alternating between Binh Ky and Ky La.
She never blamed anything or anyone, nor did she ever lose hope. I also feel some parts of the book were excessively detailed or lengthy, as others have mentioned. Still, she didn't have a chance to pursue education in Vietnam, leaving when her age was still in single digits. His wife is displeased with Hayslip's pregnancy and relationship with her husband, so she orders them back to Da Nang.Hayslip begins a string of occupations: black-market merchant, waitress, and assistant in hospitals. As the daughter of a Hoa (Chinese born and raised in Vietnam, namely, Cantonese and Saigon), it was great to have some accounts of what was happening as my father grew up in Vietnam (although he says that most of this stuff happened in smaller towns, and the presence of American soldiers in Saigon, the largest city in Vietnam, made it difficult for any harm to enter). They begin working for them as spies, but all of this ends when Southern Vietnamese discover what the children have been doing. A couple of times, she even has casual sex with European American soldiers for money.
Unfortunately, he also dies while her third and final child is still in infancy.After another twenty years, Hayslip returns to Vietnam in 1989 to visit the remaining family she has not seen in so long. As her siblings are many years older than her, they have all moved out or died.At the age of fourteen, Hayslip is raped twice in a row by soldiers. Hayslip did a really good job with this as a first book, even if it is a memoir. As punishment, they arrest and torture whoever worked for the Vietcong, as in their eyes, this was seen as a form of "helping" the Northern Vietnamese; both countries were against each other in that time era. Hayslip remarries a third and final time, taking her last husband's surname.
Not in as good a shape as indicated - many wrinkled pages that seem like water damage, ripped cover - readable for sure, but just not in as good a shape as the seller reported.
I loved this book (even though the emotional story was a bit of a tear jerker). I will be sharing my copy with my family to read as I am sure they will all love it too. Wow. I was heading to Vietnam and wanted to learn a little about the Vietnam (although in Vietnam it is called the American) war.This story gave me a sense of what the people went through, what the country must have been like during those days for people and further reinforced the travisty of wars.
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