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HISTORY MEETS ROMANTIC ADVENTURE IN
LOUISA TRIGG'S NOVEL OF PRE-WAR VIETNAM
"Told from the perspective of a number of characters--Vietnamese, American, and British--it will provide illuminating reading for students of this infamous era. Trigg offers well-researched insights into the struggle between North and South Vietnam and the role that U.S. and British politics played in the war."
--Booklist, American Library Association (2/1/01)
South Vietnam in the early 1960s was a land of fragile peace. People from several different societies coexisted in Saigon: French people, Americans, people from various Asian countries, and native Vietnamese--all with complex, conflicting political philosophies. When an attempted coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem sent shock waves from Saigon to Washington, it became clear that the tranquility of South Vietnam was at risk. As attention was focused on this beautiful but troubled land, the rest of the world became aware of what the people living in Saigon already knew: that the Diem regime was corrupt and unpopular, and that the Viet Cong were actively disrupting the peace, doing their best to prevent reform and to preserve the decay of government in the South.
Americans take the center stage of this powerful novel. They include Allison Giraud, the widow of a French planter murdered by the Viet Minh; Joe Ruffin, an intensely involved doctor-missionary; Mark Gardiner, an ambitious Foreign Service officer in the U.S. Embassy; and Katherine Gregory, the bored wife of a USAID official. These players pair off in various combinations, looking for love as if it might be their last chance before the world changes for the worse. Meanwhile, a quarrelsome and passionate trio of Viet Cong revolutionaries plot the assassination of the Vietnamese Province Chief in Dalat, the town where the American Ambassador has his country villa. East meets West in a ceremony that turns violent, testing the courage, honor, and love of all concerned.
The Real Dragon is a fast-paced novel of love, politics, and danger, with spiritual overtones. The story moves all over Saigon, from steamy back-street neighborhoods to the tennis courts and verandahs of foreign society; it also travels to the ruins of Angkor Wat and reaches its climax in a jungle where Americans and Europeans are seldom seen and less than welcome.
Louisa Hagner Trigg lived in Saigon from 1959 to 1964, while her husband was posted there as part of the A.I.D. program of the U.S. Department of State. A native of Virginia and a graduate of Wellesley, she now lives and writes in Alexandria, Virginia.
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