Humanity

Sun Herald

Sunday May 15, 2005

Winsor Dobbin

Life In Hanoi

Pam Scott

(New Holland, $24.95)

ANYONE who has visited Vietnam will have wondered how the kids who sell postcards and the street vendors offering fruit manage to keep themselves together. Scott touches on their lives, many of them fascinating and uplifting tales of iron resolve, but is unfortunately more interested in the tales of expatriates who have chosen to live in Hanoi. Thus we learn far too much about Nina, an emotionally frail American, and Philippe, a French dilettante. Some of the prose is trite. "Suu and Quy seem quietly resigned to their life and wish only for good health so they may watch the next generation grow up."

© 2005 Sun Herald

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