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Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam's Madame Nhu
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About Finding The Dragon Lady: The Mystery Of Vietnam's
Product Description In November 1963, the president of South Vietnam and his brother were brutally executed in a coup that was sanctioned and supported by the American government. President Kennedy later explained to his close friend Paul Red” Fay that the reason the United States made the fateful decision to get rid of the Ngos was in no small part because of South Vietnam's first lady, Madame Nhu. That goddamn bitch,” Fay remembers President Kennedy saying, She's responsible ... that bitch stuck her nose in and boiled up the whole situation down there.” The coup marked the collapse of the Diem government and became the US entry point for a decade-long conflict in Vietnam. Kennedy's death and the atrocities of the ensuing war eclipsed the memory of Madame Nhuwith her daunting mixture of fierceness and beauty. But at the time, to David Halberstam, she was the beautiful but diabolic sex dictatress,” and Malcolm Browne called her the most dangerous enemy a man can have.” By 1987, the once-glamorous celebrity had retreated into exile and seclusion, and remained there until young American Monique Demery tracked her down in Paris thirty years later. Finding the Dragon Lady is Demery's story of her improbable relationship with Madame Nhu, andhaving ultimately been entrusted with Madame Nhu's unpublished memoirs and her diary from the years leading up to the coupthe first full history of the Dragon Lady herself, a woman who was feared and fantasized over in her time, and who singlehandedly frustrated the government of one of the world's superpowers. From Booklist She was an enigma, extremely powerful in her heyday but almost forgotten since then: Madame Nhu, wife to the brother of the president of South Vietnam and in practical terms the first lady, a woman small of stature but hugely influential, whose participation in events preceding the 1963 coup that saw her own husband and brother-in-law executed contributed directly to the escalation of the war in Vietnam and to the radical alteration of the American and Vietnamese political and social landscapes. Based on Madame Nhu’s unpublished memoirs and on personal interviews with the woman known as the Dragon Lady, the book restores Madame Nhu to her proper place in history, as a ruthless and brilliant woman without whose manipulations the war in Vietnam might have turned out very differently. Madame Nhu, who died in 2011, spent more than 40 years (roughly the second half of her life) living far out of the public eye; this frequently surprising book brings its subject back from exile. --David Pitt Review Kirkus Reviews Engagingly provocative Smart and well-researched, Demery's biography offers insight into both an intriguing figure and the complicated historical moment with which she became eternally identified. A welcome addition to the literature on Vietnam.” Booklist online The book restores Madame Nhu to her proper place in history, as a ruthless and brilliant woman without whose manipulations the war in Vietnam might have turned out very differently this frequently surprising book brings its subject back from exile.” Daily Beast Deeply intriguing...one hell of a story.” Alexia Nader, Kirkus Reviews Finding the Dragon Lady stands out from most biographies of political leaders: It emphasizes, rather than conceals, the competing narratives of an unreliable and manipulative subject It was ultimately Demery's candid way of writing and structuring her biography that won her the battle with her subject. Her book reveals the many masks Madame Nhu wore to guard herself against the public (and even the author), and gives stark glimpses of the woman underneath.” Publishers Weekly Illuminating shed[s] light on one of the country's most controversial figures.” Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Journal A fascinating portrait of this polarizing figure [a] fair-minded and readable look at Madame Nhu and her prominent role in the early years of the Vietnam War This book performs an es
