The Book Club: Finding The Dragon Lady

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I have been intrigued by the book Finding The Dragon Lady: The Mystery Of Vietnam's Madame Nhu by Monique Brinson Demery. I'm not the type of person who reads a lot of biographies and memoirs, but this one stood out. I'm not sure if it is the the strong female politician and big personality forced into a reclusive life or the fact that Madame Nhu seems a little insane, but I'm ready to read about her life.

I first heard about the book through this interview with author Monique Brinson Demery.

It will be fascinating to see where this book leads. As soon as I've finished reading Finding The Dragon Lady I will post a review. In the mean time check out the book description below.

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 Nhu—with 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Demery’s story of her improbable relationship with Madame Nhu, and—having ultimately been entrusted with Madame Nhu’s unpublished memoirs and her diary from the years leading up to the coup—the first full history of the Dragon Lady herself, a woman who was feared and fantasized over in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.

If you would like to read a long with me and post your opinions with my review, the book costs $12.99 on Kindle and $18.98 for a new hardcover.

I'm about a quarter of the way through this book, so expect the review to be soon!