July 15, 2013
Madame Nhu (born Tran Le Xuan) was a notorious personage in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early ’60s. The surrogate First Lady of the repressive government (headed by her husband’s bachelor brother, Ngo Dinh Diem) was vocal about her love of power and infamous for her fierce authoritarianism (she once mocked a Buddhist monk who had set himself on fire in protest of Diem’s regime by saying she would “clap her hands for another monk’s barbecue”). Her incendiary rhetoric earned her the nickname “the Dragon Lady.” Yet after her husband and brother-in-law were assassinated during the U.S.-backed military coup of 1963, she went into hiding for nearly 30 years. In this illuminating biography, East Asia scholar Demery interweaves the story of her efforts to connect with her reclusive subject with the dramatic tale of Nhu’s volatile life. The Dragon Lady ultimately granted Demery unprecedented access, going so far as to entrust the journalist with her unpublished memoirs. Without condoning Nhu’s actions, Demery admits that she eventually came to respect her as “a staggeringly beautiful, proud, willful... woman” who refused to be constrained by the men in her life. The book adds little to the history of the Vietnam War, but it does shed light on one of the country’s most controversial figures. Photos, map, and time line. Agent: Lindsay Edgecombe, Levine Greenberg Literary Associates.
August 15, 2013
An independent scholar's engagingly provocative account of her encounters with the once-reviled former first lady of South Vietnam, Madame Nhu. Demery's obsession with the infamous "Dragon Lady" of Southeast Asia began when she was a child. As an adult, she came to realize that the glamour that had captivated her also encapsulated a very contemporary problem for women involved in politics. Apart from what she actually accomplished, any powerful female who also looked good would always be a media target. Not surprisingly, little of substance had been written about Madame Nhu, who went into seclusion in 1986; yet Demery managed to track her down to an apartment in Paris. For more than five years, the two carried on a conversation via phone and email that often seemed like an elaborate game of cat-and-mouse, with Madame Nhu constantly testing Demery and holding herself "just out of reach." The young scholar still managed to learn that Madame Nhu grew up an unloved and neglected child. But shrewd personal choices allowed her to outdo either of her coddled sisters and marry the brother of the first South Vietnamese president, Ngo Dihn Diem. Fiery and theatrical, Madame Nhu seized the opportunity to play an important role in her future by "launch[ing] herself into the political vacuum created by a distant pen-pushing prime minister and his furtive brother." Not only did she take on the traditional "hostess" responsibilities of first lady, she also helped enact legislation to uplift the status of women while working behind the scenes to stave off coup attempts from rebel communist forces. However, her beauty and outspokenness worked against her in conservative Kennedy-era America, which eventually supported the uprising that killed both her husband and President Diem. 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.
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