Dana Sachs, If You Lived Here

If You Lived Here

Dana Sachs

Morrow, Feb 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0061130486

In Wilmington, North Carolina, Shelley and Martin Marino are arguing over adopting a Vietnamese orphan. She strongly wants to while he says no as he has two adult children from his first marriage and does not want to raise someone else's offspring, especially in his middle age, though he also hides from his wife a deeper fear of how he will react as he served in the military in Nam during the conflict.

Shelley refuses to give up her dream, so she turns to neighborhood Vietnamese grocery store owner Xuan Mai who fled the communist regime over two decades ago for advice. With her spouse's rejection of the adoption, including his refusal to accompany her to Southeast Asia, she hopes to persuade Mai to go with her. Mai wants to accompany her, as Mai has estranged family still living in Vietnam, but hesitates over the welcome he would receive after being gone so long.

This is an interesting look at American-Vietnamese relationships from the viewpoints of the three protagonists. Fretfully Martin fears the awakening of the nightmares that he buried; Shelley innocently seeks completeness with the right child; and hesitantly Xuan wonders if you can really go home. The storyline switches perspective and turns insightful once the players reach Vietnam. However, though Dana Sachs' shows her love for the nation, everything and everyone ties up too neatly. This subtracts from the merging of the disturbing storms of the three "outsiders" with locals into an emotional tsunami.

Harriet Klausner