Contemporary Authors

• A Place to Grow ( picture book) Arthur A. Levine Books (New York, NY), 2002

1. A place to grow LCCN 00053494 Type of material Book Personal name Pak, Soyung. Main title A place to grow / by Soyung Pak ; illustrated by Marcelino Truong. Published/Created New York : Arthur A. Levine Books, 2002. Description 1 v. (unpaged) : col. ill. ; 30 cm. ISBN 0439130158 0439130174 (pbk.) Links Publisher description http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/schol051/00053494.html CALL NUMBER PZ7.P173 Pl 2002 FT MEADE Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE CALL NUMBER PZ7.P173 Pl 2002 FT MEADE Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms - STORED OFFSITE

• Saigon Calling: London 1963-75 - October 3, 2017 Arsenal Pulp Press,
• Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63 - October 25, 2016 Arsenal Pulp Press,
• Give peace a chance. - November 13, 2015 Denoël Graphic,

• Marcelino Truong - http://www.marcelinotruong.com/biographie.html

  Marcelino TruongPainter, illustrator and author, born to a Vietnamese father and a Malouine mother, Marcelino Truong is named after a street in Manila, calle San Marcelino, where he was born in 1957. A childhood traveler leads him from the Philippines in the United States, then from Saigon to London.
  Atypical course. Self-taught drawing, graduated from Sciences Po Paris and associate of English, he embarked on the life of an artist in 1983. Since then, we often notice his illustrations in warm and bright colors in the adult literature or for the youth (fiction or documentary).

  In 2002, he signed text and illustrations for the album Fleur d'eau , published by Editions Gautier-Languereau, soon followed by three other albums in the same series telling the Vietnam of yesteryear. Vietnam is still in the spotlight in the album La Carambole d'Or , a traditional Vietnamese tale adapted by Yveline Feray and illustrated by Marcelino Truong at Editions P. Picquier Jeunesse.

  His latest youth album,Three Samurai without faith and law (Ed Gautier-Languereau, 2008) , leads us to Japan stray samurai, fencers without master or home.

  He is responsible for the graphic design of the animated film, Petit Wang (26 minutes, director Henri Heidsieck), TV film award at the Annecy Festival in 2006.

  Marcelino Truong is also the author of many book covers at the Editions de the Dawn, The Dilettante, Actes Sud, Plon, Kaïlash and Gallimard, as well as French and foreign covers of novels and essays by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt at Albin-Michel.

  His illustrations appear regularly in the press, in the pages of the daily newspaper Libération, in the weekly Marianne or ELLE, as well as in the magazine XXI.

  Renewing with comics, he adapted the polar of James Lee Burke, Prisoners of Heaven , published 2010 in the Casterman / Rivages / Noir collection.

  His latest major project is a graphic novel in comics, where Marcelino Truong tells his childhood in Saigon at the beginning of the American War in Vietnam: A pretty little war - Saigon 1961-63 , published by Edo Denoel Graphic in October 2012.

  ITV film video of 1991 (Astonishing travelers in St-Malo)

• Rice Paper - https://ricepapermagazine.ca/2017/05/qa-marcelino-truong-author-of-such-a-lovely-little-war/

  QUOTED: "What prompted me was that I had always wanted to tell this story, to tell about these two short but very eventful years I spent in Saigon as a child at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Later on, the war became huge from 1965 onwards. But between 1954 (the end of the Indochina War) and 1960, the Vietnamese were much left to themselves and that’s what so interesting about his period. It’s not very well known."

  Q&A: Marcelino Truong, author of Such A Lovely Little War8 min read
  25 May, 2017 1 comment
  Marcelino Truong
  Marcelino Truong’s new book Such a Lovely Little War illustrates his childhood and family life during the early years of the Vietnam War. His father (a Vietnamese diplomat) and his French mother moved the family to Saigon in 1961, where his father became President Ngo Dinh Diem’s personal interpreter. Marcelino (a self taught illustrator) sat down with Ricepaper to explore the process of creating the graphic novel, how the story shines through illustrations, and his initial nerves in setting out to tell his story.

  Such a Lovely Little War, Arsenal Pulp Press
  What prompted you to write this book, and why in graphic novel form?

  What prompted me was that I had always wanted to tell this story, to tell about these two short but very eventful years I spent in Saigon as a child at the beginning of the Vietnam War. Later on, the war became huge from 1965 onwards. But between 1954 (the end of the Indochina War) and 1960, the Vietnamese were much left to themselves and that’s what so interesting about his period. It’s not very well known. We know about the American War, but before that this was our war, a war between Vietnamese and Vietnamese. Then it became big because President Johnson sent the conscripts and in 1967 there were 600,000 American soldiers in Vietnam. But before that, in my days, there were only 900 American counselors spread out in the whole of Vietnam. So this was still a very Vietnamese story, and this period is not very well known. This was the beginning of the Vietnam war.

  The graphic novel opened new doors for authors. When I started off in 1983 the scene was different. In comics, there was a lot of insistence on doing adventure stories or stuff you had never had and never would be involved in. Of course I was interested in epic stories or adventure scenarios, but these were fictions I had never been involved in myself. So, the graphic novel is a new genre, within the bigger picture of comic art, that allows for this personal narration, a place to tell your traumas, and which is much welcomed by many authors.

  How do you think the experience of reading the book would differ if you chose to stick with a traditional non-fiction (maybe even memoir-esque) style?

  The main difference is the visual component. It’s easier to read a graphic novel than a thick awe-inspiring history book, with dozens of footnotes, written by some scholarly don. A graphic novel can be easier to approach. Also, I think the graphic novel form allows you to instill a bit of humour into your narration, to relieve the tension of what could be an otherwise quite grave and sombre story. It allows enables you to evoke the lighter aspects of the historical bigger picture. In Such a Lovely Little War, I recall my childish pranks and the games I would play as a child with my siblings, like organizing betta fish fights and setting up crickets tournaments, games that all Vietnamese kids enjoy. Little things like that aren’t usually mentioned in history books, they’re just not the place for it. It also allows more room to show the way people dressed. I find that history books don’t insist enough on the visual aspect of things.

  The difference in uniforms of troops in north and south Vietnam.
  For example, there’s a page in my graphic novel where I explain the political situation in the country when my family arrived in 1961. I recall the background of Vietnam’s partition, and juxtapose the images of the leaders on each side of the fence, also showing the uniforms worn by their troops. You had Ho Chi Minh in the North and Ngo Dinh Diem in the South. To me, appearances are very telling. Uncle Ho wore the Maoist tunic. His troops’ uniforms were very strict – collars buttoned right under the chin – a tell-tale sign of Chinese Maoist ideology. Meanwhile, down south, Ngo Dinh Diem wore black tie and a white suit. It was meant to indicate that South Vietnam was looking up to Western democracy models, and was willing to be part of the Free World. Our soldiers were fitted with Western uniforms and our elite units wore the dreaded tiger suits. This was a sort of blunder, because our French colonialists masters had worn the same outfits, and thus our opponents had a field day in saying that we were puppets, walking in our former oppressors’ shoes. The President’s white suit and black tie gave him the appearance of a neo-colonialist and a conservative bourgeois, while uncle Ho stood out as the Revolutionary Robin Hood.

  How long did it take to research, illustrate, and write Such a Lovely Little War? What was the most difficult aspect of piecing the book together?

  It took me about four or five months to write the story. I was very nervous because for thirty years or so, I had been learning my trade on the job, mainly as an illustrator. By the way, I have no formal education in the arts. I’m completely self-taught. For thirty years I had been illustrating other people’s texts and would only occasionally write short stories for young readers. I was nervous about writing the scenario of 260 pages story. To convince myself that I could do it, I really felt I had to write it in full. And so I did. This was also useful to convince my French publisher that I had a good story.

  I produced a pencil-art page for each one of the book’s pages. The final illustrations look very much like the pencil-art they first began as. For me, the hardest part (and also the most exciting bit) is the pencil-art rough. My pencil-roughs are quite precise, as I consider that the closer I come to the final art, the better. Once I have done the pencil art, I feel more at rest. So, I began drawing roughs in 2010-11, and it brought me to June 2012. My publisher at the time wanted to publish by October of the same year. So, from June to September, I shut myself up at Saint-Malo, in Brittany, (Jacques Cartier, the famous French explorer, the first French settler in Canada on the East coast, came from St-Malo) to do the final art: 90 days working 16 hours a day, with no R&R, only popping out for a daily swim in the sea and taking a quick nap in the afternoon on the beach. Quite a marathon!

  There is a wonderful mixture of memory and history in Such a Lovely Little War. How did you write with blending the two together?

  I wouldn’t have been able to do it by just relying on my own memories, because I was only six when we left Saigon in 1963. Yes, I had many vivid images – I had loved those two years -, but I couldn’t have done the graphic novel purely basing it on my own recollections. It was like when you wake from a dream and you’ve forgotten most of it. You remember only 5 per cent of your dream…

  Luckily, my French mother was a profuse letter writer, regularly writing home to her parents in France. My grand-parents kept all Mum’s letters and these were filled with facts about our daily lives. Mum would supply her parents with many vivid details, such as what schools we went to, what were our games, what sort of illnesses we had, what books we were reading, etc… My mother also chronicled the military and political situation, which was quite alarming, and much cause for anguish for her and her busy husband.

  Of course, before writing the book, I also had endless conversations with my parents or other members of my extended Vietnamese family. I also did a huge amount of reading, and watched all sorts of documentaries and films about the Vietnam war.

  When I started returning to Vietnam in the nineties, it was also very helpful talking with those members of my Vietnamese family who had chosen the other side, Ho Chi Minh’s side. It was very enlightening to hear their side of the story. Indeed, there are always two sides to a coin.

  What’s something you would like to tell your younger self now?

  I think it is very dangerous to live in a society where you hear one story all the time. Even if it’s progressive, it’s dangerous, you need to hear both sides. So, my message is that I am violently moderate. I speak out violently for moderation in politics. My message is stay away from radical politics be they left or right. Be open to more viewpoints.

  Such a Lovely Little War is now available through Arsenal Pulp Press. Its sequel Saigon Calling, will be released in fall 2017, and will focus on Marcelino’s family life the swinging London of the sixties and seventies – the Pop counter-culture years – set against the backdrop of the Vietnam war.

• Le Minh Kai - https://leminhkhai.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/an-interview-with-marcelino-truong-author-of-such-a-lovely-little-war/

  QUOTED: "Because I was so young when I lived in Saigon, in the early 60s, there were many things that I couldn’t remember. I was only 6 when we left Saigon for London. I did have some clear memories, but it was a bit like when you wake up from a dream, you remember perhaps one tenth of the story. Luckily, my French mother was a great letter writer."
  "My mother Yvette’s detailed accounts of her daily life in Saigon were invaluable to me. I was thus able to reconstruct our family timeline: how in 1961 we left Washington DC, where my Vietnamese father worked as a junior diplomat at the South Vietnamese Embassy; how we flew to Saigon on board a Caravelle; the worrying situation in Saigon when we arrived; how, after staying at our Vietnamese grandparents’ house in the suburb of Gia Dinh, we moved downtown into a three room flat on Nguyen Hue boulevard; etc."

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  An Interview with Marcelino Truong (Author of “Such A Lovely Little War”)

  Having just read and enjoyed the graphic novel, “Such A Lovely Little War,” but having never heard of its author, Marcelino Truong, I decided to contact him and ask him a few questions about his book.

  What follows is an “interview” that we conducted over email.

  What you have written is a mixture of history and memory and this makes me wonder what comes from memory and what doesn’t. So how much research did you do for this book? And, if you did conduct research, what did you need to learn about?

  Yes, my graphic novel Such a Lovely Little War is indeed a hodgepodge of memory and history.

  Because I was so young when I lived in Saigon, in the early 60s, there were many things that I couldn’t remember. I was only 6 when we left Saigon for London. I did have some clear memories, but it was a bit like when you wake up from a dream, you remember perhaps one tenth of the story. Luckily, my French mother was a great letter writer. She would give news to her parents back in France almost every week, when we were abroad. And luckily, my grandparents kept all her letters, in their stamped AirMail envelopes, sky blue pages covered with Mum’s clear handwriting in ballpoint, along with photos and drawings by us, the children, that she would slip in.

  My mother Yvette’s detailed accounts of her daily life in Saigon were invaluable to me. I was thus able to reconstruct our family timeline: how in 1961 we left Washington DC, where my Vietnamese father worked as a junior diplomat at the South Vietnamese Embassy; how we flew to Saigon on board a Caravelle; the worrying situation in Saigon when we arrived; how, after staying at our Vietnamese grandparents’ house in the suburb of Gia Dinh, we moved downtown into a three room flat on Nguyen Hue boulevard; etc. . .

  All our yesterdays were consigned in her letters.

  1 mother

  [My mother Yvette writing home from Washington DC in Such a Lovely Little War.]

  Of course, I did a great amount of reading, to check the facts, and to fill in some gaps. But this reading about the history of Vietnam, I have been doing for years. Ever since I was a child in fact. My father was something of an erudite, and we have loads of books on Vietnam at home. He had known or met many of the authors of these books.

  And I had countless conversations with my parents, and also many Vietnamese uncles and aunts, and other relations who remembered those days, sometimes reluctantly. As Michael Herr – the author of Dispatches – said: “Those who remember the Vietnam should forget, and those who forget Vietnam should remember.”

  2 Truong Buu Khanh-Papa et Yvette Horel-Maman Paris 1948

  [My parents, Yvette and Khanh, met in Paris in 1948, while studying at the Sorbonne. They were married in Dec 1950.]

  2) As I’m sure you know, there are many different perspectives on the period of Vietnamese history that you cover in the book. How did you try to deal with those different perspectives? Did you have a plan or a philosophy for that?

  In Such a Lovely Little War, I assumed that few readers would be familiar with the background of the Vietnam War, and therefore I had to supply them with the basics.

  In doing so, I tried to be objective and balanced, not taking sides, and rendering the different points of view of the belligerent parties.

  This was made easier for me, because these different standpoints exist within my own extended Vietnamese family.

  Whilst my father, after some hesitation, had chosen the Nationalist side, a brother of his and several cousins followed and supported the Revolution. It seems obvious to me that each and everyone’s opinion must be presented, as I had met all these people, and that they deserved respect. The narration of the Vietnam War has always been a very political thing. Both sides claimed to be the liberators.

  The narration of the Vietnamese 20th Century wars of independence was and still is a real can of worms!

  However, although I strive to be balanced, I often found myself rather naturally speaking out for the Nationalist side.

  That is where I come from.

  Sometimes I looked away from the Nationalist side, wanting to hear what the other side had to say, but in the end, that is the coterie I feel the most related to. I must say, however, that I mostly witnessed the Nationalist camp through my father’s personality. My father – Truong Buu Khanh – was a reflective, quietly-spoken, cultured man, who had been to a good catholic school in Huê (L’Institut de la Providence) before setting off for France in 1948, with a scholarship.

  By the way, his Maths and English teacher at La Providence was Professor Ta Quang Buu, who later signed the Geneva Accords in 1954, on behalf of the Vietminh!

  My father studied literature (French and English) at the Sorbonne and International Relations at Sciences Po (a famous school of political science) in Paris. He began to work for the State of Vietnam, under Emperor Bao Dai, in 1951, in Paris, as the Press Officer of the Haut Commissariat du Vietnam en France.

  Later, he became a junior diplomat for the Republic of Vietnam (1955-75).

  3 Truong Buu Khanh cabinet de SM Bao Dai 89 ave Villiers 17e 1951

  [My father, Truong Buu Khanh, Press Officer of the State of Vietnam’s representation in Paris, 1951.]

  I was born in Manilla, Philippines, during his first overseas posting, and given the name of the street we lived on: la calle San Marcelino.

  In 1961, my father was serving as Cultural Counsellor at the RVN Embassy in Washington DC, when he was called back to Saigon. During the two eventful years we spent in Saigon (July 1961- Aug 1963), my father was President Diem’s favorite interpreter (from English to Vietnamese) and was appointed director of Vietnam Press. My father thus met many foreign observers or politicians visiting South Vietnam, and also most of the reporters arriving in Saigon at that time. He later would often tell me about the foreign journalists and diplomats he had known quite well in Saigon.

  The non-Communist Vietnamese have all too often been ignored or caricatured.

  They were eclipsed by the towering American Armada. Some, like my father and many others, did try to promote some sort of democracy, along Western lines, but their endeavors were overlooked, despised, or got drowned in the smoke of war. They were all too often sneered at and looked down upon as “puppets,” the term used by their communist opponents to depict them. Western progressives often took up this pejorative term of “puppet” and chose to prefer their communist counterparts in North Vietnam, although that regime, hiding behind the Bamboo Curtain, was far more opaque than the Republic of Vietnam, invariably dubbed “the Saigon regime.”

  By the way, we nationalists also saw our communist opponents as marionettes of puppet master Mao Zedong of China.

  3) As an illustrator who wrote a book about the past, and a past that you yourself experienced, what did you want to convey through your illustrations? Are they just meant to be pleasing or entertaining, or is there something that you want a reader to understand or feel through your illustrations?

  A mix of both, I think. As an illustrator, I hope that my illustrations will be pleasing and entertaining.

  However, the illustrations also have to convey the violence and the sorrow of war.

  Some people have said that I was quite graphic sometimes, showing horrible wounds, beheadings, limbs torn off. . . Well, that is war.

  But I also wanted to show the atmosphere of Saigon and the Vietnam, in those days. Saigon was a charming city where Vietnamese and French architecture mingled. Oriental and Western fashions shared the sidewalk. Rickshaws, Renaults and Cadillacs brushed in the clamor of traffic jams. High-heeled shoes clicked dangerously near bare feet in rubber tongs. That’s for ambience of Saigon, back then.

  5 High heels in SALLW

  [High heels in Such a Lovely Little War.]

  But an illustration can also tell another tale.

  I love to look at the way people are dressed. The clothes that leaders wear tell you something of their politics.

  Ho Chi Minh’s modest pajamas, and later his Puritan Maoist jackets were a giveaway. First he posed as the tough, whisp-of-a-man Oriental in guerilla fighters’ togs – very romantic! – and later, after 1949, often appeared wearing the Red Chinese democratic uniform for all. . .

  President Diem of South Vietnam made a huge mistake in donning white suits, black ties and Consul toe cap shoes: this was the outfit of the former colonial masters!

  6 Mao jacket vs white suit of the colonial masters

  [Tell-tale togs in Such a Lovely Little War: the Mao jacket vs the white suit of the former colonial masters.]

  One of the strengths of our communist adversaries was that baggy peasant work-clothes or frog-green uniforms with a distinctive sun-helmet looked Asian and national, whereas the kaki fatigues and US steel helmets of the slim ARVN soldiers made them look like boys, dressed in foreign imperialist hand-me-downs.

  The tiger suits worn by the elite units in the South Vietnamese army also gave the wrong signal to Western progressive eyes. The tiger suit was the outfit of the counter-insurgency forces already during the French Indochina war (1945-54) and even more so in Algeria (1954-62), at the same time. So we, the noncommunist Vietnamese, came out as nasty, reactionary and fascist torturers, whereas our communist foes could pose as the goodies, the heroic rebels, the romantic revolutionaries. . .

  All this imagery weighed heavily in those days. They helped Western radicals form what seems to me a very idealized, Orientalist and romantic view of the Vietnamese communists. Ironically, today, the elite troops in the regular Peoples’ Army of Vietnam all parade in tiger suits.

  Robert Shaplen ND Diêm et TBK mai 62

  [Robert Shaplen, Ngo Dinh Diem and Truong Buu Khanh, May 1962.]

  4) This may be too direct of a question, but what was your purpose in producing this book? It’s both very personal and very educational. Is there something that you wanted to achieve by combining a personal story with the history of a particular time and place?

  Nope, it’s not too direct of a question.

  At first, I think I just wanted to tell a good story. The most exciting period of my youth, those heady Saigon days seemed to me.

  Then, it developed into something else, after the book came out.

  In gatherings, conferences and signings, it emerged that I was becoming a self-elected spokesman for the non-communist Vietnamese, the losers of the war. I was going to have a go at telling our story. Our voice was drowned during the war. Our powerful American ally stole the scene. Its powerful media flooded the world with images and stories of the boys from Wisconsin and Ohio fighting it out in Vietnam.

  We South Vietnamese became the walk-on parts of our own war.

  The Vietnam war has often been told either by gung-ho hawks, or by antiwar intellectuals and activists, and nothing much in between.

  In the universities of the western world, the history of the Vietnam War was mostly based on material supplied or written by academics who were for the most opposed to the war, and sometimes sympathetic to the Hanoi side.

  I can fully understand why so many Americans were against the war, especially after 1968, that turning point in the conflict. This was not their war. They had no reason to be maimed or killed in this foreign land.

  However, when one is against a war, or all wars, need one take sides?

  It so happened that in their haste to end the war, many pacifists thought it fit to give the other side a helping hand, and felt it proper to paint us black. Uncle Ho Chi Minh was near idolized, while his antagonists Presidents Diem and Thieu usually were demonized.

  Certainly many mistakes were made in the South, but this was done under the full glare of Western spotlights, while many blunders were committed in the communist North, but these were given much less publicity.

  The Vietnam War was like a match in which almost all the referees are whistling fouls on one side of the pitch, while it’s a field day for the other side, with little or no international supervision.

  It has often been said that the Vietnam War was in asymmetrical one. In many ways it was. David against Goliath? Probably so.

  Lovely War Jacket

  However, the war of images was certainly asymmetrical.

  In the South, during the whole duration of the war (1959-75), we had hundreds of foreign reporters roaming freely and full-time all over the country. Meanwhile, up north, Hanoi would only now and then let in a treacle of carefully screened progressive-minded journalists, committed or at least favorable to their Cause.

  Many of the foreign reporters hacking it out in the South were opposed to the war, and were trying to bring it to an end, by producing horrific clichés. And horror galore it was. But no such thing was taking place in the propaganda-minded communist armies. Photographers there were soldiers, and the camera was their weapon. Their pictures were designed to help the struggle, to extol the heroics of the People’s Army, and certainly not to display the real suffering and sorrow caused by its blows.

  This perspective of the war appears in several parts of the book, and it is voiced on page 98 by a South Vietnamese Airborne officer, speaking to an American reporter (I had Neil Sheehan in mind, but it could have been almost any other), out in the boonies.

  The rookie reporter has followed an Airborne unit on an operation in the delta. He has witnessed an interrogation scene during which a Vietcong suspect dies under torture. This he has not dared to photograph.

  Here are the seasoned para’s words to the stunned and mute photo-reporter in Such a Lovely Little War:

  “Now you know! The war against insurrection isn’t pretty. But in two or three hours you’ll take a shower, smoke some weed, pick up a cute little Vietnamese whore who will get you off. . . And next time, take the pictures you didn’t take today. We’ll let you do it. Your photos will hurt our cause. But that’s the difference between us and the other side.”

  7 Counterinsurgency under foreign scrutiny

  [Counterinsurgency under the scrutiny of a foreign reporter in Such a Lovely Little War.]

  Luckily, things seem to be changing. There seems to be a refreshing current in the academic world, in the West at least, regarding the narration of the Vietnamese wars of independence, and also of its colonial past. This is not revisionism – as some may snicker -, but rather a more balanced and less politicized view of Vietnamese history that is slowly emerging.

  Historians like Liam Kelley, Christopher Goscha, Keith Taylor, Olga Dror and others, in Canada and the USA, along with François Guillemot and others in France, are offering a less anti-imperialist and anti-war approach, in which the Nationalist view is also given.

  The official standpoint in Vietnam, even today, is that all the Vietnamese were with Ho Chi Minh in the struggle for independence, and that those Vietnamese who were not on his side were just traitors and puppets of the Western imperialists (France, USA, etc. . .). Thus, according to the communists, the Indochina wars were not civil wars. All the People were fighting against foreign aggression, under the leadership of Uncle Ho.

  Well, I find that very simplistic, and moreover, false.

  I would venture that from 1945 onwards, the Vietnamese elites (I don’t know about the People) were dreaming of Independence – an irresistible dream!-, but were divided from the very beginning as to the nature of this independence.

  Would it be a red, pink, light blue or dark blue independence?

  All these political affiliations existed in Vietnam. There was not just the one single current, although powerful, of the Vietnamese communists.

  I hope this message will spread. It’s about time.

  “The truth is rarely pure and is never simple,” Oscar Wilde said. This could apply to Vietnamese history.

  Marcelino Truong

  March 21, 2017

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  QUOTED: "My two years in Saigon at the beginning of the 60's, as a child, seemed to me by far the most striking and thrilling period of my childhood. It seemed comparable to me to J.G. Ballard's accounts of his childhood in Shanghai, where he witnessed the Japanese occupation and was fascinated by the Imperial Japanese army."
  "Only gradually did it occur to me that there might be the material for a follow-up. Probably this realization was helped by the fact that I did quite a few talks and interviews after the first graphic novel was published, and it became clear to me that many clichés formed the mainstream view of the Vietnam war."
  "It became clear to me that a second book was a good idea, because there was so much to say about the point of view of the non-communist Vietnamese, all too often dubbed the 'Saigon puppets' by the Vietnamese Communists and many Western progressives, to our dismay."

  Web Exclusive – October 03, 2017

  MARCELINO TRUONG
  The second chapter in a Saigon saga
  BookPage interview by Hilli Levin

  Author-illustrator Marcelino Truong has penned a follow-up to his critically acclaimed graphic memoir, Such a Lovely Little War. Picking up in 1963, Truong again blends personal narrative with an incredibly well-researched account of the Vietnamese side of the Vietnam War, a history that is little-known inside the U.S. While the first book focused on Truong's early years in Saigon, Saigon Calling finds his Vietnamese diplomat father, French mother and his siblings on the move to London in order to escape the escalating conflict in Vietnam. This poignant, honest account chronicles Truong's early teen years, his search for belonging and understanding, his experience caught between very different cultures and their disparate views on the war.

  We asked Truong a few questions about sifting through his memories and filling in the blanks, becoming a self-taught artist, his next project and more.

  When you began writing your first memoir, Such a Lovely Little War, did you already have this follow-up planned, or did you discover that you had multiple books worth of material during your writing process?
  At first I don't think I had a follow-up planned. My two years in Saigon at the beginning of the 60's, as a child, seemed to me by far the most striking and thrilling period of my childhood. It seemed comparable to me to J.G. Ballard's accounts of his childhood in Shanghai, where he witnessed the Japanese occupation and was fascinated by the Imperial Japanese army.

  Only gradually did it occur to me that there might be the material for a follow-up. Probably this realization was helped by the fact that I did quite a few talks and interviews after the first graphic novel was published, and it became clear to me that many clichés formed the mainstream view of the Vietnam war. Also, the first book deals with the early days of the war which was much less known than the American Vietnam war which really began in earnest in 1965, when President Johnson sent the conscripts. Before that, Vietnam had been a professional soldier's war.

  It became clear to me that a second book was a good idea, because there was so much to say about the point of view of the non-communist Vietnamese, all too often dubbed the "Saigon puppets" by the Vietnamese Communists and many Western progressives, to our dismay.

  As you sifted through your memories and your childhood experiences during your writing process, did you have any surprising or unexpected revelations about yourself?
  I began to wonder what I had found so nice about Saigon and life in South Vietnam because the situation was already very grim. The revolutionary war conducted by the Viet Cong, remote-controlled by Communist Hanoi, and the counterinsurgency warfare it triggered in retaliation was killing about 1000 people every month, most of them civilians.

  Of course most of the killing took place in the countryside, but Saigon and other cities of South Vietnam had their share of bombings, grenades thrown in cinemas or restaurants, assassinations, and the occasional coup d'état attempts. I discovered there was probably something in my personality that found some sort of interest in such uncommon, disturbing situations.

  When we arrived in England in 1963, at first I found British life rather dull and tasteless. Things picked up later with the pop counterculture revolution, but even though that revolution was flowery and hedonistic, somehow I preferred the atmosphere of Saigon, which was both martial and addicted to pleasure.

  What sifting through my memories in Such A Lovely Little War and Saigon Calling revealed to me is how far the war has shaped my life and my psychology.

  Alongside your personal history, you offer a very detailed timeline of the events of the Vietnam War that is truly eye-opening for Western readers. How much historical research did you have to do for this book?
  I did lots of research, but you know, the Vietnam war started around 1957, the year I was born. I heard about it at home: My father took part in it in his own way, as a civil servant, and many of my uncles and aunts were involved in that conflict, on both sides. So they are an invaluable source of knowledge about the Vietnam War. They will tell you more about the reality of war in five minutes than many lengthy books written by journalists or academics. Although I greatly enjoy reading the works of journalists and academics, being an academic myself through my training, I must say that firsthand witnesses have a blunt way of putting things that provide many shortcuts to understanding history. But I do like academics and journalists. I was groomed become an academic. I have never been to art school. I am a completely self-taught artist. I went to law school in Paris and then to the Sorbonne, to study English literature. This training helps me a lot with my research. I have no fear of reading dry articles and dense essays.

  You spent many of your formative years living amongst very different cultures—Saigon, London, Saint-Malo. How did this shape the way you see the world today?
  I am a strange product of three different cultures: the Vietnamese culture, the British culture and the French.

  This shapes the way I see the world in that I cannot help seeing the differences in attitudes and thoughts between Europe and Asia, and between Protestant and Catholic countries, or northern and southern Europe. There is also an undeniable mutual fascination between East and West, and many bridges between North and South. I like both and tend to think I'm getting the best of both worlds. But I feel really privileged to have lived in all these different countries and to have friends and family all over the world.

  You've said in previous interviews that you're a completely self-taught artist. When did you start drawing? Did your artistic brother Dominique spark your interest?
  Oh it's a long story. To put it in a nutshell, let's say I slowly drifted towards the world of illustration, painting and comics after having had no idea for years that this was what I was going to be doing as a job.

  I started illustration work and comics at the age of 25, with only a few pencil or color drawings I'd done in my spare time. Dominique influenced me indirectly with his bohemian way of life. He was a hippie, an outcast. I felt very square and straight compared to him, and choosing the life of an artist, after having achieved all the studies that were expected from me, was, I suppose, my way of being bohemian and slightly rebellious in my turn.

  My mother was also an influence. She painted, drew and had a passion for ceramics, and later enamels, and was really good at sewing and music. She could play Chopin's Nocturnes perfectly. Unfortunately for her, her manic depression hindered her considerably in her artistic undertakings. I think she was an artist at heart, but in those days, when you came from the modest lower middle-class, it wasn't easy to come out as an artist. It seemed like a futile thing to do.

  "Graphic storytelling allows you to do stuff you can't do in writing. Graphic novels are easier to read, I suppose, and more forthcoming."

  Which artists have had the most influence on you stylistically?
  My mother used to love Gauguin, who almost went to Vietnam instead of the French islands in the Pacific. He is indeed an artist whose works I really admire.

  Hergé is also an obvious influence, because there weren't that many comics around in London, in the 60's and 70's, and I really enjoyed Tintin. One of my favorite illustrators is a Chinese artist called He Youshi.

  But I'm basically a book guy. I studied English and American literature quite a bit at the Sorbonne, and we read novels, or plays or poetry, which we studied in depth, many of them great classics, and none of them were comics of course. So that sort of shaped me.

  When did you first discover your love for comics and graphic storytelling?
  For me the graphic novel is a great way to tell a story. The pictures make the story easier to grasp. The visuals allow you to get an immediate impression, whereas a book, well you have to read it, don't you?

  I suppose I could have written Such a Lovely Little War or Saigon Calling as regular memoirs, but graphic storytelling allows you to do stuff you can't do in writing. For instance, the graphic novel genre allowed me to inject a dose of humor in my storytelling. Written in prose, the book may have been too serious. Graphic novels are easier to read, I suppose, and more forthcoming.

  Graphic novels are usually less stuffy than some very learned academic essays.

  What are you working on next?
  My new project is a fiction graphic novel, or one might call it a "faction" comic, meaning a mix between fact and fiction, covering the end of the French Indochina War as seen from the Viet Minh side. The Viet Minh was the name of the coalition of Vietnamese nationalists and patriots fighting for independence under the banner of uncle Ho Chi Minh. Uncle Ho's Vietnamese Communists, supported by the Soviet Union, and especially by Maoist China after 1949, very quickly dominated this coalition of patriots.

  My story will begin in Spring 1953, just one year before the end of the war, which was marked by the famous battle Dien Bien Phu. My main character is a young Vietnamese artist from Hanoi who is press-ganged, so to say, or conscripted into the People's Army. We follow him through the war.

• Wikipedia - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcelino_Truong

  Marcelino Truong
  Marcelino Truong
  FIBD2016MarcelinoTruong.jpg
  Marcelino Truong at the 2016 Angoulême Festival .

  Biography
  Birth
  February 5 , 1957 (61 years old)
  Manila
  Nationality
  French
  activities
  Painter , cartoonist , illustrator
  edit - edit code - edit WikidataModel documentation

  Marcelino Truong , born on February 5 , 1957to Manila ( Philippines ) is an illustrator , painter and designer comic French.

  Summary
  1 Biography
  2 Prizes and awards
  3 Some publications
  4 Notes and references
  5 External links
  Biography
  Marcelino Truong, born to a Vietnamese father and a French mother, spent his childhood in the United States , Vietnam and Great Britain . From 1960 to 1964, he lived in Saigon , in a city full of life despite the war that threatened, with the constant fear of bombings. His family moved to London where his father was a diplomat at the South Vietnam Embassy . Then he continued his schooling in France, having taken the nationality of his mother's country.

  A graduate of Sciences-Po Paris and a graduate of English 1 , he left teaching and began his life as an artist in 1983. "I learned about late and on the job. It took me fifteen to twenty years to find my style, close to "poetic realism". After sailing between the clear line of Floc'h and the line of Loustal , I arrived there by going to the gouache and the direct color. " 2

  The ambiances and oriental decorations, sources very inspiring for Marcelino Truong, allow him to draw his personal Vietnam , mixture of memories, history, dreams and imagination.

  He is the author of many book covers on Vietnam at the editions of Aube , The Dilettante , Actes Sud and Plon , as well as covers of several novels of the writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt , in France , as well as abroad. He is regularly seen in the pages of Libération , Le Figaro literary and magazines Senso , Elle , XXI . Always finds in him the fascination for Asia .

  In 1995, the book he illustrated, written by Franck Pavloff , in the collection "J'accuse ...! ": Child prostitutes in Asia , is the winner of the Non Fiction Young Adults, at the Book Fair of Bologna 3 (Italy).

  In 2012 , he published a graphic novel, A Pretty Little War , about his childhood in Saigon in the sixties. Three years later, he gives a sequel to this album, Give peace to chance , which tells the life of his family in Europe during the Vietnam War .

  Awards and Rewards
  Children prostitutes in Asia , Syros , 1995, winner of the Non Fiction Young Adults, at the Bologna Youth Book Fair 3
  Petit Wang (26 minutes), director Henri Heidsieck , TV film award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2006 .
  Some publications
  Covers of Vietnamese novels
  Twenty years old , Nguyen Huy Thiep's novel , translated by Sean James-Rose , editions of Aube , 2005
  Soldiers Street , Chu Lai novel , Editions de l'Aube , 2003
  Gold and Fire , Nguyen Huy Thiep's novel , Aube 2002 editions , 2003 pocket
  The Embarcadere des femmes sans maris , novel by Duong Thu Huong , editions of Aube 2002
  Willow people , novel of Vân Mai , editions of Aube 2000 , pocket - different cover - 2002
  The Revenge of the Wolf , news of Nguyen Huy Thiep , editions of the Aube 1997 , pocket 2002
  A retired general , news of Nguyen Huy Thiep , pocket 1999
  Tale of love on a rainy night , news from Nguyen Huy Thiep , editions of the Aube 1999 , pocket 2000
  Demons live among us , Nguyen Huy Thiep's theatrical play , 1997 pocket
  Women's Island , novel by Ho Anh Thai , editions of Aube 1997
  The Adventures of Cricket , Tô Hoai's fable , editions of Aube 1997
  Ghosts and Men , Nguyen Khac Truong's novel , Editions de l'Aube 1996
  Love story told before dawn , novel by Duong Thu Huong , Editions de l'Aube 1994 , pocket 2003
  Comics
  In bluer skies , Magic Strip , coll. "Atomium 58", 1985
  The Bamboo Dragon , script by Francis Leroi , Albin Michel Publishing , coll. "The Echo of the Savannahs", 1991
  Child prostitutes in Asia , script by Franck Pavloff , Syros , coll. I'm accusing, 1995
  Billie Holiday , BDMusic , coll. "BDJazz", 2009
  Prisoners of the Sky , novel by James Lee Burke , adaptation of Claire Le Luhern , Casterman , coll. " Rivages / Casterman / Black ", 2010
  Julie London , BDMusic , coll. "BDJazz", 2011
  Such a pretty little war , Denoel, coll. "Denoël Graphic", 2012
  Give peace to chance , Denoël, coll. "Denoël Graphic", 2015
  Illustrated books
  Water Flower , Hachette , 2002
  The World from Above , novel by Xavier-Laurent Petit , Casterman , 2010
  Children's books
  Churchill , Actes Sud , coll. "Who were you?", Illustrator Jean-Christophe Mazurie , 2011
  The Knight with the Green Shield , novel by Odile Weulersse
  Notes and references
  ↑ http://www.lesentretiens.org/Entretiens_Excellence/Paris/Levenement/Intervenants/Intervenant_577-Marcelino_Truong/ [ archive ]
  ↑ http://www.letelegramme.com/ig/generales/regions/bretagne/marcelino-truong-l-elephant-white-02-01-2011-1163791.php [ archive ]
  ↑ a and b (it) Winners Bologna Children's Book Fair 1995. [ archive ]

QUOTED: "Truong's matter-of-fact tone unites his personal story with the universality of war."

Print Marked Items
Saigon Calling: London 1963-75
Eva Volin
Booklist.
114.6 (Nov. 15, 2017): p37.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text: 
Saigon Calling: London 1963-75.
By Marcelino Truong. Illus. by the author. Tr. by David Homel.
2017. 284p. Arsenal Pulp, paper, $26.95 (97815515268981.741.5.
This continuation of his memoir Such a Lovely Little War (2016) picks up when Truong and his family
move to London, where his father will serve as a counselor at the Vietnamese embassy and where there is
hope that his mother's fear of the coming war will dissipate. To young Truong and his brother, war is still a
game to play. As he grows older and assimilates to European society, Truong views the war through a
Western lens. With pro-Communist, antiwar demonstrations on one side and letters from relatives still in
Vietnam describing ongoing horrors on the other, he is forced to determine what is actually happening in his
native country and what is fake news. The art is seemingly simple, but Truong keenly captures the details of
the late 1960s and '70s, bringing the backdrop of the changing landscapes of swinging London and war-torn
Saigon to life. Truong's matter-of-fact tone unites his personal story with the universality of war, bringing
the reader closer to understanding a still-controversial time in history.--Eva Volin
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Volin, Eva. "Saigon Calling: London 1963-75." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 37. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441799/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f58ea952.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A517441799

QUOTED: "Truong combines powerful visual imagery with deft narrative as he recounts his teenage years in London and France."
"An excellent combination of personal insight and historical sweep."

Truong, Marcelino: SAIGON CALLING
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 15, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Truong, Marcelino SAIGON CALLING Arsenal Pulp Press (Adult Nonfiction) $26.95 10, 1 ISBN: 978-1-
55152-689-8
The second volume of the author's critically acclaimed graphic memoir of the Vietnam War era.The son of a
French mother and a Vietnamese diplomat father, Truong combines powerful visual imagery with deft
narrative as he recounts his teenage years in London and France while developing mixed emotions and
allegiances about the war tearing his homeland apart. Like the masterful Such a Lovely Little War (2016),
the story benefits from the author's unique perspective, formed by the very different perspectives of his
parents (whose marriage seems to be disintegrating), by seeing the war from afar while surrounded by those
of different nationalities, and by maturing from childhood through adolescence during a turbulent era. As a
teenager, Truong saw the war escalate on TV while experiencing the foment of Beatlemania, psychedelia,
and the protest movement as the culture swirled through waves of upheaval. "Blimey! The VC don't mess
around," he responded to a letter from home that reported of Viet Cong activity. Military uniforms mixed
with those of Sgt. Pepper in his imagination, while playing soldier got confused with the real thing as
filtered through the media. The author couldn't resist the influence of the peace movement, the vitriol
directed toward the United States and their South Vietnamese puppet regime, or the romanticizing of the
Viet Cong as guerrilla freedom fighters. Yet he understood the implications a vindictive totalitarian
government would have in South Vietnam, and he feared for the safety of family and friends. (He didn't
know until later that some of his cousins had joined the National Liberation Front and were killed in the
warfare.) The young man who would become the author felt confused by the cultural barrage from different
sides, and both the war and his responses to it are more complex than those who would simplify it into
good-and-evil, hawk-and-dove can recognize. An excellent combination of personal insight and historical
sweep.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Truong, Marcelino: SAIGON CALLING." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504217703/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=f7d25c94.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A504217703

QUOTED: "Truong's nuanced account offers an absorbing counter-narrative. He acknowledges the commonplace images ... but the boy's-eye view and familial setting give readers an opportunity to consider the war's impact and significance from a new vantage point."

A boy's-eye view of Vietnam's war: plus
why Freud cannot be dismissed, Haruki
Murakami and Seiji Ozawa talk about
music, a 'trans' case for race and the
human factor in analog
Brett Josef Grubisic
Maclean's.
129.50 (Dec. 19, 2016): p60.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Rogers Publishing Ltd.
http://www2.macleans.ca/
Full Text: 
SUCH A LOVELY LITTLE WAR
Marcelino Truong, translated by David Homel
Often rendered in watercolour-like strokes (in muddy greys and faded pinks), the look of this terrific graphic
memoir consistently invokes sepia--and episodes at the very edge of memory, or belonging to another time
and place. Recalling events from his childhood more than 50 years ago, Paris-based Truong captures vivid
details and scenes as he describes his family's painful uprooting from a quiet, middle-class (albeit casually
racist) American suburb--"something Norman Rockwell might imagine"--to Saigon in the humid summer of
1961.
While young Marcel grew accustomed to exotic sights and a quick-changing atmosphere where innocent fun
commingled with sudden gunshots and explosions, his father, a Vietnamese diplomat (and later interpreter
for autocratic Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem), strove to reassure his wife and sons about the
relatively benign "worrisome situation" just outside their temporary new apartment. Marcel's mother,
yearning for her lost American dream in Maryland and former home in France, gradually fell into a mental
illness that began with anxiety attacks and fits of compulsive cleaning.
Adept at revealing the fraught dynamics at home, Truong's expository passages about the Cold War, the
complex "global arm-wrestling" centred around North and South Vietnam, and the key players--including
Madame Nhu, the president's savvy wife--are likewise models of economy and assuredness. His storytelling
makes faction scuffles and geopolitics intriguing.
Less cerebral than Alison Bechdel's best-selling graphic memoir Fun Home and less polarizing than Chester
Brown's underground hit Paying For It, Such a Lovely Little War offers a warm yet elegiac account of one
family's unique dilemmas and responses.
Seeing, too, that American film representations of Vietnam (from Apocalypse Now and Platoon to Full
Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill) have become the de facto popular truth of that war, Truong's nuanced
account offers an absorbing counter-narrative. He acknowledges the commonplace images--helicopters,
napalm, jungles, Agent Orange, a self-immolating monk--but the boy's-eye view and familial setting give
readers an opportunity to consider the war's impact and significance from a new vantage point.
Caption: 'Such a Lovely Little War': Truong's graphic novel about his family's life in Vietnam is a nuanced
counternarrative to American history of the war
----------
Please note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Grubisic, Brett Josef. "A boy's-eye view of Vietnam's war: plus why Freud cannot be dismissed, Haruki
Murakami and Seiji Ozawa talk about music, a 'trans' case for race and the human factor in analog."
Maclean's, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 60. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A474126071/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=85596d3b.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A474126071

QUOTED: "a solid choice for adults and teens interested in history and politics, especially relating to Southeast Asia."

Graphic novels
Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri
Library Journal.
141.19 (Nov. 15, 2016): p69+.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text: 
NYCC 2016: FANDOM CHANGES LIVES
At this year's New York Comic Con (NYCC), which took place October 6-9 at Manhattan's Jacob Javits
Convention Center, speaker/activist Jackson Bird showed off the politically jocular T-shirt
"Granger/Lovegood 2016" (for Harry Potter characters Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood). The panel
was "Fandom for Humankind: Fans Doing Social Good," during which Bird discussed the Harry Potter
Alliance (HPA). With its own booth at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual and other
conferences, the HPA enlists fans of J.K. Rowling's stories to work for equality, human rights, and literacy,
doing voter registration and pairing with devotees of Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" novels for the
Odds in Our Favor project addressing real-life economic inequalities. The HPA's Fandom Forward effort
provides toolkits for bringing community activism to fans of other stories with a strong "good vs. evil" vibe.
Another speaker on the panel represented Random Acts, engaging fans of the TV series Supernatural in
social projects. Wayward Daughters, a project affiliated with Random Acts, brings together Supernatural
fans to push for a spin-off focusing on the strong female characters in the series. "We will give our lives for
our stories, the fictions we create," said Christopher Gebhardt, of Stir Strategy and Story. Any of these
groups could supply ideas for compelling library-based programming. Additional panels also addressed how
comics drive social change: "Comics and Politics," "Comics Uniting Nations," and "Comics with a
Message."
Like last year, over 30 well-attended sessions discussed comics for/by/about diverse people: 12 sessions
relating to race, 12 to gender, six to LGBTQ interests, and three to disability. A takeaway: disabled people
want to write and act their own stories, instead of having stories involving disability created primarily by the
nondisabled.
ALA ran four panels for librarians, covering body diversity in comics, reluctant readers, working with
comic shops, and holding a library comic con.
As for the industry, millions of dollars have transformed into billions as if by Harry Potter wizardry. At
ICv2's insider conference on the market, Milton Griepp proclaimed that sales in 2015 (comic books, graphic
novels, digital comics) grossed over $1 billion for the first time. And speaker Rob Salkowitz estimated that
the total yearly economic impact of North American pop culture fan conventions exceeds $4 billion: ticket
costs, con-centered transactions, and income to local businesses. For more NYCC coverage, see "Top
Library Panels" (ow.ly/vGYb305w3Ig) and "Picturing History, Comics Creators in Conversation"
(ow.ly/3vXL305w4C7).--MC
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Camus, Albert (text) & Jacques Ferrandez (text & illus.). The Stranger. Pegasus. Jun. 2016. 144p. tr. from
French by Sandra Smith. ISBN 9781681771359. $25.95. LIT
Meursault is sentenced to death for murder because he does not show culturally prescribed emotions,
particularly at his mother's funeral. A dispassionate fellow driven mostly by sensations and detached
curiosity, he savors sex with the charming Marie as well as the sights, sounds, and smells of his city,
Algiers. But in befriending Raymond Sintes, a bully obsessed with petty revenge, his detachment leads him
to kill unintentionally Sintes's enemy in his stead. Camus's classic novel elaborates on the nature of meaning
and absurdity, and how religion, social expectations, love, and sensations influence us. Himself born in
Algiers, Ferrandez (The Guest) excels with the pale vistas and brilliant light of Algeria, almost a character in
the story. For many pages, the narrative panels float on larger watercolor landscapes or cityscapes that seem
to shimmer. The figures appear somewhat static by contrast, embodying Meursault's disconnected
viewpoint. No commentary is provided, leaving readers to interpret events for themselves. VERDICT This
expressive and attractive version of Camus's challenging parable makes a fine introduction to the work for
older teens through adults.--MC
Higashimura, Akiko. Princess Jellyfish. Vol. 2. Kodansha. Jun. 2016. 376p. notes. ISBN 9781632362292.
pap. $19.99; ebk. ISBN 9781682332795. F
A reclusive nest of celibate fangirls crosses fates with a rich political family in this appealing josei
(women's) manga. Tsukimi adores jellyfish, while her housemates obsess over Ichimatsu dolls, trains, or
Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Then two half brothers from the family fall for Tsukimi: the elder Shu, a
rising star in politics yet a 30-year-old virgin, and the younger Kuranosuke, an eccentric with an
unconventional wardrobe. Yet Shu seems easy prey for Shoko, a glamorous and manipulative real-estate
agent who wishes to replace Tsukimi's building with a high-rise hotel. Can loves and lodgings get sorted
out? Higashimura's series recalls Paradise Kiss in its Pygmalionesque theme of urchin-turned-princess by a
besotted artist. The drawings integrate awkward as well as graceful depictions, and a gentle send-up of girlie
cliches, roses, hearts, and romantic fantasies populate the pages. VERDICT With winsome charm
characteristic of shojo manga but aimed at slightly older audiences, this cockeyed, award-winning soap
opera about not fitting in is up to 16 volumes in Japan. There is also an anime and a live-action film. Note
amusing, nonsexual gender switches.--MC
Jacobson, Abbi. Carry This Book. Viking. Oct. 2016. 144p. ISBN 9780735221598. pap. $25; ebk. ISBN
9780735223240. GRAPHIC NOVELS
What would Martha Stewart carry with her? Sigmund Freud? Homer Simpson? Ben Franklin? Jacobson
(Color This Book; writer/actress, Broad City) conjures tongue-in-cheek take-alongs for over 50 people, both
real and imaginary. Donald Trump's gear includes a comb labeled "Make Your Hair Great Again" and a
copy of Building Walls for Dummies. Barbie totes a key ring jingling with 11 keys: secret agent motor
cycle, sparkle style salon, and more. Santa sports a jeweled watch showing six time zones and packs baggies
for all the cookies left out for him. The whimsical drawings are all hand-colored with bright markers and
captioned as if by the "owner." Each object carries nuggets of story as Jacobson asks, in essence, what the
things we carry say about us? The humor is more gentle than savage--a condom in Stewart's purse because
"you never know" is as edgy as it gets. VERDICT As an exercise in creativity or as a way of understanding
history, this would make good inspiration for workshops for middle schoolers through adults. Fans of Roz
Chast and Kate Beaton will breeze through it with great enjoyment.--MC
Jones, Sabrina. Our Lady of Birth Control: A Cartoonist's Encounter with Margaret Sanger. Soft Skull. Jul.
2016. 160p. bibliog. ISBN 9781593766405. pap. $19.95. BLOG
Thanks to the Catholic Church and antisex crusader Anthony Comstock, "Tell Jake to sleep on the roof" was
the state of contraception education when Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) worked as a nurse before World
War I. But Sanger captivated and bullied both friends and foes to establish birth control as an acceptable
practice for Americans, and supported development of "the Pill." Clever, flirtatious, and obsessed with the
tragedy of unwanted pregnancy, she loved physical passion herself and recruited her husbands and lovers to
assist her. Jones (Race To Incarcerate) inter-cuts her own activism with Sanger's story, bitterly noting Rush
Limbaugh's 2012 shaming of Sandra Fluke for testifying in Washington that college women need healthcare
plans covering contraception. Heavy, swirling black drawings convey the force behind both Sanger's
and the author's concerns. VERDICT The feminist slogan "the personal is political" was never more apt as
when considering contraception, and Jones's account shows how one committed person can change the
world. For teens and adults interested in activism and women's issues. Includes some sexual depictions. See
also Peter Bagge's outstanding Woman Rebel.--MC
Mann, George (text) & Emma Vieceli & others (illus.). Doctor Who. The Eighth Doctor. Vol. 1: A Matter of
Life and Death. Titan. Jun. 2016. 128p. ISBN 9781782767534. $19.99; ebk. ISBN 9781785856112. SF
Only the first and last exploits of the Eighth Doctor have ever been filmed, but his adventures in between
have been chronicled in a long series of novels, audio dramas, and comics. Mann, who has written "Doctor
Who" stories in all three of those formats, introduces a new companion for him here. When the Doctor
returns to his old house on Earth he finds a squatter there: artist Josie Day, whose paintings (of alien
monsters she shouldn't be familiar with) are somehow coming to life. Josie and the Doctor's resourcefulness
is tested on an exciting multipart quest that takes them first to a planet of cat people who have been hunted
to near extinction, and then to 1860s England and much further afield. The Eighth Doctor's romantic
idealism is well captured, and Josie shows a brave spirit kindred to his own. The artwork often favors thick
outlines and bright colors in an attractive, somewhat art nouveau-esque manner, appropriate to the Doctor's
19th-century costume. VERDICT Titan is doing a great job with its "Doctor Who" line; fans will be more
than satisfied.--SR
Millar, Mark (text) & Rafael Albuquerque & Dave McCaig (illus.). Huck. Vol. 1: All-American. Image. Jul.
2016. 160p. ISBN 9781632157294. pap. $14.99; ebk. ISBN 9781534300804. GRAPHIC NOVELS
Orphaned as a child and raised by small-town foster parents, hulking gas station attendant Huck is
considered slow even by his friends, but he's really just quiet, with a simple outlook on life that's
uncommonly kind and generous. He makes sure to do one good deed a day, and some of those deeds involve
using his superstrength and a miraculous ability to find lost items. After watching the 2013 Superman film
Man of Steel, Millar, concerned by the continued darkening of superhero stories--a trend he had perpetuated
in books such as Kick-Ass, The Ultimates, and Civil War--laudably decided to create an antithesis here. The
book's early pages, recounting Huck's many kindnesses and his encounter with a crass politician who wants
to exploit him, are genuinely sweet. Unfortunately, the story eventually veers into more familiar territory for
Millar, and gets tarted up with one particularly gratuitous trashy-looking female character. The artwork,
likewise, progresses from quite nice to moments of inconsistency and inelegance. Though marked as
Volume 1, no continuation has been forthcoming. VERDICT Huck the character is a treasurable creation;
the book, less so.--SR
* Moen, Erika & Matthew Nolan. Oh Joy Sex Toy. Vol. 3. Limerence: Oni. Nov. 2016. 312p. ISBN
9781620103616. pap. $29.99. Rated: M. HEALTH
Married couple Moen and Nolan are enthusiastic sex geeks, and they want to make the horizontal mambo
fun and safe for everybody. Equal parts Consumer Reports and Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column, their
here-collected webcomic reviews sex toys and includes much additional content about getting up close and
cozy with self and others. Vibrators, penis-pleasers, contraception, erotic techniques, lifestyle choices such
as polyamory, performance sex (e.g., porn and pole dancing), plus vaginismus and sexually transmitted
infections are all elucidated through two-color brushwork that's charming, informative, funny, and explicit.
The illustrative, cheeky naked figures throughout embody a wide variety of physical types, ethnicities,
disabilities, and sexual preferences. A special end section features guest strips from other web cartoonists.
Moen and Nolan originally self-published the first two volumes in this series, with Limerence Press, Oni's
new imprint for erotic and sex education comics, recently reprinting those titles and releasing this third
volume and a forthcoming coloring book. VERDICT Promoting sex education broadly for joy and intimacy
rather than a particular sexual orientation or activity, this collection makes valuable but possibly scary
information much easier to think about and discuss with others. Adults only, and especially recommended
for libraries in urban and university locations.--MC
O'Sullivan, Ryan (text) & Plaid Klaus (illus.). Turncoat. TPub. Sept. 2016.164p. ISBN 9780992752385.
pap. $14.99. SUPERHERO
In a spit-in-the-eye against superhero archetypes, this quirky tale introduces a hit man who never hits his
targets--who are superheroes. In fact, Duke is a not-so-lovable loser all around, even if we sympathize with
him because a superhero ruined his childhood. His ex-wife and rival assassin (drawn with unglamorous,
sturdy malevolence) steals his hits and runs off with another man, who fathered the kid Duke thinks is his.
But the superheroes Duke is trying to get rid of are not so likable either, especially the one impersonating
Duke's ex-wife. In fact, nobody is quite what they seem in this snarky saga, which provides nonstop,
entertaining plot twists. O'Sullivan (Twisted) manages a fitting ending that surprises readers as well as
Duke. Klaus (The Glimmer Society) has fun overexaggerating an already exaggerated concept with unpretty
illustrations and commedia dell'arte touches, using coloring that varies from atmospheric to realistic to sepia
flashback. VERDICT This dark and dirty satire paints blood all over superhero cliches, supplying chuckles
and snorts along the way. For older teens and adults who like a dollop of "anti" with their heroes.--MC
Schulz, Charles M. The Complete Peanuts: Comics and Stories 1950 to 2000. Fantagraphics. Oct.
2016.330p. ISBN 9781606999578. $29.99. COMICS
This 26th and final volume of the "Complete Peanuts" series presents selected examples of Schulz's Peanuts
work outside of newspapers, some of it quite rare. Opening with a real treasure, the first-ever complete
reprint of the 17 pre-Peanuts cartoons that Schulz (1922-2000) sold to the Saturday Evening Post, it
continues with work from comic books, women's magazines, and several long-out-of-print storybooks and
gag cartoon collections, including two delightful tomes spotlighting Snoopy's writing career. Also featured
is some of Schulz's advertising work, including his 1960s ads for the Ford Falcon showcasing genuine (and
funny) four-panel Peanuts strips not available elsewhere. And while the gang's gushing praise for the car can
certainly be seen as uncomfortable commercialism, it's too bad that the selection of these strips here is not
complete. Schulz's widow, Jean, provides a very personal afterword about their life together. VERDICT The
dreary and uninviting covers of the hardcover "Complete Peanuts" books do not adequately reflect the fun
within. But Fantagraphics deserves much thanks for publishing a complete collection of the world's most
popular comic strip. Libraries collecting the set shouldn't miss this fine extra volume.--SR
Truong, Marcelino. Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63. Arsenal Pulp. Nov. 2016. 280p. tr. from
French by David Homel. ISBN 9781551526478. pap. $26.95. MEMOIR
Truong (Give Peace a Chance) experienced part of the Vietnam War as a child, living in Saigon with his
Vietnamese diplomat father and patrician French mother. The upper-class family weathers shortages,
bombings, and troops everywhere, while the children play at war themselves, even--disturbingly--reenacting
with toy figures a Buddhist monk's self-immolation of protest. Despite encroaching chaos and widespread
suffering, little Marco doesn't understand how serious the war is or why their parents argue. Moreover, their
mother has undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Voice-over narration beyond the family's speech balloons supplies
insights from the grown-up author, now wiser and more horrified about how death and disorder accelerate
despite optimistic rhetoric and heavy investment of money and men. The art style is attractive, rather blocky
simplified realism in two colors, with occasional full-color panoramas. VERDICT Revealing the past fruits
of a mishandled American collaboration, the story highlights the complexity of international policies on
both personal and political levels. A solid choice for adults and teens interested in history and politics,
especially relating to Southeast Asia. See also GB Tran's Vietnamerica.--MC
Martha Cornog is a longtime reviewer for LJ and, with Timothy Perper, edited Graphic Novels Beyond the
Basics: Insights and Issues for Libraries (Libraries Unlimited, 2009). Steve Raiteri is Audiovisual Librarian
at the Greene County Public Library in Xenia, OH, where he started the graphic novel collection in 1996
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Cornog, Martha, and Steve Raiteri. "Graphic novels." Library Journal, 15 Nov. 2016, p. 69+. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A470367152/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1e3c6f45. Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A470367152

QUOTED: "In the hands of both an author and an illustrator with an Eastern orientation, subtle exchanges bloom into explanations of family [and] current events ... enriching perceptive young readers."

A Place to Grow. (Children's Books)
Kirkus Reviews.
70.19 (Oct. 1, 2002): p1477.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Pak, Soyung
Illus. by Marcelino Truong Levine/Scholastic (32 pp.)
$16.95
Sep. 2002
ISBN: 0-439-13015-8
A simple story can sometimes grow into many compound emotions, like the delicate complexity of a flower.
And in the hands of both an author and an illustrator with an Eastern orientation, subtle exchanges bloom
into explanations of family, current events, and the natural world, enriching perceptive young readers who
would spend the time to pore over the integral pictures and text. Ezra Jack Keats Award--winner Pak (Dear
Juno, 1999) recounts the growth of a conversation between a father and daughter who have emigrated to the
West to find their own quiet patch of earth, escaping the turmoil of their native country. The father's belief in
the good reasons to uproot--or more aptly, transplant--his family are as reassuring as the seasons and the
weather. Sometimes, he says, a seed must travel far to find good soil, good sun, and good rain. And there is
another garden in the heart. Newcomer Truong uses bold, solid renderings in China Ink and gouache to
reinforce the solidity of the family's survival intact. He uses a bright, varied, and happy palette in the
gardens of the new country, along with startling angles and perspectives. The old country he renders darkly
and more monochromatically while more in profile. There is no terror, repression, or violence depicted,
because we know it is there. The simple, excellent design melds both image and text to bring a rich harvest
on many different levels, like a Koan or haiku. World migration is becoming more of an issue; family
survival always has been; and children's worldliness today requires sophisticated metaphors to assuage
anxieties. Perhaps in a small way here is a large contribution. (Picture book 4-10)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"A Place to Grow. (Children's Books)." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2002, p. 1477. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A93027348/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=867767eb.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A93027348

QUOTED: "While the book's heartfelt sentiments may appeal to some, its preachy tone and strained images will likely confuse young readers."

A Place to Grow. (Picture Books)
Publishers Weekly.
249.32 (Aug. 12, 2002): p300.
COPYRIGHT 2002 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
SOYUNG PAK, ILLUS. BY MARCELINO TRUONG. Scholastic/Levine, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 0-439-
13015-8
Like a 17th-century poem, this high-toned story about why a family chooses to move to another country
rests on a single, extended metaphor. Unfortunately, the book ultimately sinks under the weight of its poetic
abstractions. Pak (Dear Juno) introduces the book's theme when the girl narrator says that her father, like a
springtime seed, "flew a long way to grow into our family." Truong alternates warm renderings of the girl
and her father planting a lush garden in their new homeland with illustrations of the hardships endured in the
Asian country from which he emigrated. The repeated and often forced analogy between seeds and people
carries political freight beyond the knowledge of most children (the father tells the girl a seed needs rain to
grow, but "the rain that fell on our seed came only now and then,/ and sometimes not at all./.../That is what it
is like when there are too many workers/ and not enough work"). The leap from rainfall to unemployment,
or from a seed/person needing "good land," but not to o many guns and not enough love" may be asking too
much of some readers. The book ends on a cozy, if didactic note, as the father remembers his father saying,
"There will always be a garden in my heart for you." While the book's heartfelt sentiments may appeal to
some, its preachy tone and strained images will likely confuse young readers. Ages 4-10. (Sept.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"A Place to Grow. (Picture Books)." Publishers Weekly, 12 Aug. 2002, p. 300. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A90527705/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ff1c295b.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A90527705

QUOTED: "dear, beautiful double-page spreads that show the troubled streets left behind as well as the family."

Finding home
Hazel Rochman
Booklist.
99.4 (Oct. 15, 2002): p410.
COPYRIGHT 2002 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text: 
Three new picture books tell immigration stories from the small child's point of view, Connect these with
other books about young refugees who cannot forget "when the soldiers came" or when hard times drove
them from home. Elementary school teachers might like to use these stories with Thomas Yezerski's
Together in Pinecone Patch (1998), Allen Say's 1994 Caldecott winner, Grandfather's Journey, and with
other picture books about coming to America, then and now.
* Hazen, Barbara Shook. Katie's Wish. Illus. by Emily Arnold McCully. 2002. 32p. Dial, $15.99 (0-8037-
2478-0).
PreS-Gr. 2. Katie says she's sick of potatoes, boiled and boring at every meal, and she wishes they'd go
away. But when the potato crop turns black and famine comes to Ireland, she feels afraid she caused the
trouble. True to the viewpoint of one small child, Hazen brings the history close: the hunger, the evictions,
the strength of family. Katie's mother is in heaven; her father is in America, and when he sends for her, she
travels with her older cousin across the stricken country, survives the crowded ships, and arrives in America,
where Da holds her "heart close." As in McCully's 1993 Caldecott winner, Mirette on the High Wire, and
her other picture books about young girls in history, the beautiful impressionistic watercolor paintings set
the sturdy child against the background of the times. The interior scenes are dark and troubled, but the
suffering is distanced; even with the blight, the Irish landscapes are filled with light. In words and pictures,
the narrative shows the hardship and the hope.--Hazel Rochman
Hoffman, Mary. The Color of Home. Illus. by Karin Littlewood. 2002. 32p. Penguin Putnam/Phyllis
Fogelman, $15.99 (0-8037-2841-7).
PreS-Gr. 3. The author of the popular picture book Amazing Grace (1991) tells another moving story here of
an immigrant kid in the classroom. Hassan's Muslim family was driven from their home in Somalia by the
violent civil war. On his first day of school in America, everything looks gray and strange and he can't speak
English. Then in art class he paints a picture of the happy home he remembers before the soldiers came to
his village. When he paints a second picture of the nightmares that haunt him--the flames and bullets that
killed his uncle and drove his family out--his teacher brings a Somali interpreter to translate for him, and he
tells her his refugee story. Littlewood's beautiful impressionistic watercolor paintings reveal the child's
memories of his African village: the warmth and light and then the terror. After that there's the flight, and
the pictures do a great job of expressing Hassan's sense of dislocation in a gray, unfamiliar place, until,
finally, he sees the bright colors of his school and his new home.--Hazel Rochman
Pak, Soyung. A Place to Grow. Illus. by Marcelino Truong 2002. 32p. Scholastic/Arthur A Levine, $16.95
(0-439-13015-8).
K-Gr. 2. In this handsome picture book about an Asian immigrant family, a Korean American writer and a
Filipino French artist use the metaphor of a seed that needs a safe place to grow. As a small girl works with
her dad in the sunny garden of their comfortable home, he talks about how seeds travel, and the pictures
move back and forth between the seeds they are planting now and the faraway places he left, where there
were "too many guns and not enough love ... too many workers and not enough work." The simple words
are poetic, and the garden image makes universal connections while it leaves space for individual families to
fill in their own particular journeys. The trouble is, there's too much space. The places are generic: Where
exactly is this? Somewhere in Asia? What happened? When? To quote Isaac Bashevis Singer, the story
needs an "address." Fortunately, the pictures are somewhat more specific--dear, beautiful double-page
spreads that show the troubled streets left behind as well as the family now safe at home.--Hazel Rochman
Rochman, Hazel
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rochman, Hazel. "Finding home." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2002, p. 410. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A94080016/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7d85b951.
Accessed 20 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A94080016

Volin, Eva. "Saigon Calling: London 1963-75." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 37. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441799/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "Truong, Marcelino: SAIGON CALLING." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504217703/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Grubisic, Brett Josef. "A boy's-eye view of Vietnam's war: plus why Freud cannot be dismissed, Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa talk about music, a 'trans' case for race and the human factor in analog." Maclean's, 19 Dec. 2016, p. 60. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A474126071/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Cornog, Martha, and Steve Raiteri. "Graphic novels." Library Journal, 15 Nov. 2016, p. 69+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A470367152/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "A Place to Grow. (Children's Books)." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2002, p. 1477. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A93027348/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. "A Place to Grow. (Picture Books)." Publishers Weekly, 12 Aug. 2002, p. 300. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A90527705/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018. Rochman, Hazel. "Finding home." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2002, p. 410. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A94080016/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 20 May 2018.

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  QUOTED: "Truong's work is compelling, provoking, and moving. In many ways the latest volume of his graphic memoir, Saigon Calling, is even more fascinating than the first, insofar as it follows not only the war in Vietnam but also the culture shock of Truong's family attempting to readjust to life outside of the war zone, in Europe. Again, it's generally the war experience in Vietnam that receives treatment in American popular culture; Truong's work follows the impact of that war on families that fled Vietnam."

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  Marcelino Truong's 'Saigon Calling' Is a Beautiful Graphic Memoir of a Nightmarish Time
  HANS ROLLMAN 20 Nov 2017
  THIS BOOK OFFERS A POIGNANT AND JARRING REMINDER NOT JUST OF THE RESILIENCE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, BUT ALSO OF ITS ABILITY TO SEEK SOLACE IN THE MATERIALITY OF ONE'S PRESENT.
  Marcelino Truong launched his autobiographical account of growing up in Saigon during the Vietnam War with the acclaimed graphic novel Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63, originally published in French in 2012 and in English translation in 2016. That book concluded with his family's permanent relocation to London, England, as the chaos and bloodshed back home intensified.

  Now Truong continues the tale with Saigon Calling: London 1963-75 (originally published in French in 2015), which follows the experiences of his family after they seek refuge in Europe. It offers a poignant illustration of what life was like for a family of refugees from the war, and from the perspective of young children (granted, Truong's family were a privileged and upper class set of refugees, well-connected with South Vietnamese and European elites). While relatives and friends struggle to survive amid the bombs and street warfare of Vietnam, the displaced narrator and his siblings find their attention consumed by the latest fashion and music trends in London. The book offers a poignant and jarring reminder not just of the resilience of the human spirit, but also of its ability to seek solace in the materiality of one's present.

  SAIGON CALLING: LONDON 1963-75
  MARCELINO TRUONG
  (ARSENAL PULP)
  Oct 2017
  Truong is the son of a South Vietnamese diplomat, and his account is told primarily from the perspective of the South Vietnamese side in the war, lending its sympathies toward that side. Its partiality is borne from painful first-hand experience, of course, but the book underscores two much more important, and less partisan, points.

  First is the troubling role of the United States. While Truong is sympathetic toward the US-allied, South Vietnamese regime, and critical of the ostensibly communist North, his book underscores that the US was no friend to its allies. American involvement in the war simply prolonged the inevitable North Vietnamese victory and occupied the world's attention, at the expense of the very complex relationships and debates that existed amongst the Vietnamese themselves. Truong's narrative suggests the South Vietnamese regime might have had greater credibility as a struggling democracy if it hadn't been overshadowed by America's forced friendship, which tended to only delegitimize the indigenous regime in the eyes of the world. Instead of seeing a struggle between two Vietnamese protagonists, the world saw a struggle between David and Goliath: an American puppet regime in the South on the one hand and a plucky anti-colonial regime struggling for self-determination in the North on the other. The US did few favours as a supposed ally of the South, his book suggests; on top of that, it couldn't even live up to its military promise, finally abandoning the South to defeat.

  The second important point Truong brings forth is that the Vietnam War was fought by Vietnamese. It sounds trite to say, but it needs to be said. Because of the impact America's role in the war had on so many Americans, and the way the world reacted to America's involvement, people still tend to think of the war as an American war. And in many respects it was – it had a tremendous impact on America's cultural psyche, and wouldn't have dragged on for so many years and cost so many lives if the US hadn't meddled. But what's often forgotten is that it wasn't just the US fighting. The South fielded armies that carried on a tremendous resistance against the North, Truong argues. While historians might quibble over the precise nature of the South Vietnamese regime -- American puppets, or struggling democracy? -- what's indisputable is the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers who died on both sides. Tom Hayden, in his posthumously published 2017 work Hell No: The Forgotten Power of the Vietnam Peace Movement, reminds us that in addition to the estimated 58,000 Americans killed in the war and 153,000 wounded, "the figures for South Vietnam's armed forces were at least 200,000 dead and 502,000 wounded. The best estimate of civilian Vietnamese war dead is 2 million." And yet, he notes, "Congress feared that to recognize them would mean having to pay them the same benefits their American counterparts get. So they, too, are airbrushed from the official history, and thus do they suffer a double betrayal."

  Truong tackles the issue head-on in his book. A Vietnamese colonel working for the South Vietnamese embassy speaks up "refuting the erroneous and too common idea that the Americans are the ones doing all the fighting." "Our combat losses are twice those of our American allies," he rages. "This disinformation comes from the fact that 80% of the 400 foreign correspondents posted to Vietnam are American, and they prefer to cover the operations where their boys are fighting…"

  Truong's book is important enough as a graphic memoir of the war and its aftermath from a Vietnamese perspective, but his broader goal, it would seem, is to offer a more complex portrayal of the South Vietnamese regime. While acknowledging its corruption, nepotism, and many faults, he argues that it was also comprised of many idealistic, progressive and sincere democrats (like his father) who worked hard to build a democratic regime. Truong's books aim to rehabilitate their image and their agency in the tumultuous and bloody politics of that era.
  Again, it offers plenty of fodder for debate amongst historians. Whether or not one chooses to give the failed South Vietnamese progressives as much credit as Truong does, his work is right to complicate our historical and cultural recollection of the war, especially in America. The war in Vietnam was an incredible turning point in American society, culture, and history. It sparked tremendous cultural changes and reshaped American society. Its legacy still carries that impact. Yet it's important not to forget the impact the war had on the Vietnamese, and not to allow its impact on American society to overshadow its impact on Vietnamese society. Both were indelibly affected, and it's important to acknowledge its role in both countries' cultural histories. But it is still all too often the American war experience which gets our attention.

  As Truong himself stated in a fascinating interview for Le Minh Khai's SE Asian History Blog, "The non-Communist Vietnamese have all too often been ignored or caricatured. They were eclipsed by the towering American Armada. Some, like my father and many others, did try to promote some sort of democracy, along Western lines, but their endeavors were overlooked, despised, or got drowned in the smoke of war. They were all too often sneered at and looked down upon as "puppets," the term used by their communist opponents to depict them."
  Truong's work is compelling, provoking, and moving. In many ways the latest volume of his graphic memoir, Saigon Calling, is even more fascinating than the first, insofar as it follows not only the war in Vietnam but also the culture shock of Truong's family attempting to readjust to life outside of the war zone, in Europe. Again, it's generally the war experience in Vietnam that receives treatment in American popular culture; Truong's work follows the impact of that war on families that fled Vietnam.
  Truong isn't the first writer, or even graphic artist, to tackle the theme. GB Tran's magisterial Vietnamerica, published in 2010, adopted a very similar approach, telling the story of Tran's own family as they experienced and then fled the war. The artistic style of the two authors is very different. Truong's work is warm and detailed; bright and evocative of Herge-style French comics. Tran's style is more harsh and angular, albeit colourfully lush and almost akin to oil paintings. Artistic styles aside however, it's interesting to contrast the experience of the two authors, who each narrate their respective tales in the first person.

  Tran's family fled to the United States in the final hours of the war; Truong's family sought refuge in England. Both experienced culture shock as they attempted to adjust to their new homes; both experienced the division of families when the North won the war; and both also experienced heartrending losses in exile. Truong's family experienced mental breakdowns and suicide. Tran's family experienced decades of division; his grandfather was a high-ranking Viet Minh officer and a war hero in the North, who had left the family when Tran's father was only a baby in order to fight with Ho Chi Minh's guerrilla army. His army's victory was bittersweet, as his family fled the country mere hours before their victory, and they didn't see each other for decades.
  What both of these tremendously talented authors convey, with tremendous and edifying passion, is the tragedy of the Vietnam War. It's almost impossible to separate the tragedy of war from the tragedy of imperialism in Vietnam, because it was imperialism that dragged the war out for so many years and led to such bitter recriminations and divisions. Yet both Truong and Tran remind us that the ideologies and politics that still surround our cultural memory of the war fade into inconsequence next to the profound and continuing human suffering that the war generated. It's a lesson that, sadly, humanity continually needs reminding.

  Rating:
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• The Guardian
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/17/saigon-calling-marcelino-truong-review
  Word count: 756

  QUOTED: "What an amazingly capacious comic book Saigon Calling is (like Marcel’s beloved Tardis, its appearance is deceptive). Somehow, Truong, a successful illustrator who now lives and works in France, manages to provide the reader with much of the historical and political background to the quagmire that was the Vietnam war without ever derailing the family story that lies at the heart of his book."

  Saigon Calling by Marcelino Truong review – an amazing achievement
  Books
  Graphic novel of the month
  This second part of the author’s Vietnam war memoir skilfully combines history and politics with a witty and poignant family story

  Rachel Cooke
  Rachel Cooke

  @msrachelcooke
  Tue 17 Oct 2017 02.30 EDT Last modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018 19.49 EDT
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  A panel from Marcelino Truong’s Saigon Calling: London 1963-75
  ‘Almost-swinging London’: a panel from Marcelino Truong’s Saigon Calling: London 1963-75. Photograph: Marcelino Truong
  Marcelino Truong’s complex, finely judged and utterly riveting memoir is a sequel to his 2016 book, Such a Lovely Little War, in which he told the story, as seen through his boyhood eyes, of Saigon at the beginning of the 60s, when his diplomat father, Khanh, was the personal interpreter of the prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem. This volume, however, is set not in Saigon, but in London, where Khanh has been appointed to a high-ranking job at the Vietnamese embassy – though the grim news from home is, of course, never any further away than the next BBC bulletin. In South Vietnam, General Khanh, widely seen as an American puppet, has taken over as the country’s leader following the assassination of President Diem. In the communist north, the Viet Cong are growing ever stronger and more vicious, with the result that President Johnson is shortly to put US troops on the ground.

  For all the city’s outward stiffness, the young Marcel likes almost-swinging London. He and his three siblings adore Doctor Who and Top of the Pops; it’s no secret that he longs to own a pair of the new pointed shoes and a Beatles-style military jacket (and failing that, a Dinky toy Batmobile). But life isn’t always easy. Lonely in Wimbledon, his French mother, Yvette, continues to struggle with bipolar disorder, relying on Valium to get her through the dank, British days. Meanwhile, his father, worried sick for his parents trapped in Saigon, must deal with the growing realisation that his dreams for democracy in Vietnam are likely, now, to come to nothing. Aware of what lies ahead, he quits his job at the embassy, swapping it for less lucrative work as a translator for Reuters.

  Marcelino Truong
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  ‘Evocative details’: Marcelino Truong
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  And then there is the attitude of British leftists (and pretty much all young people) to the war in Vietnam. What to make of it? Marcel shares, to a degree, their anti-Americanism. But what he can’t understand is why the young, bearded types who demonstrate in the streets are seemingly so supportive of the communists. “As Vietnamese, we suspected our Viet Cong adversary was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he notes quietly, beside a frame of a lipsticked protester shouting: “Ho Chi Minh!”

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  What an amazingly capacious comic book Saigon Calling is (like Marcel’s beloved Tardis, its appearance is deceptive). Somehow, Truong, a successful illustrator who now lives and works in France, manages to provide the reader with much of the historical and political background to the quagmire that was the Vietnam war without ever derailing the family story that lies at the heart of his book. On to every page he sneaks so many evocative little details, from the Action Man tableaux he and his brother photograph on their Brownie Starflash, to his sister’s adventures as an aspiring hippy at Durham University, to the dreamy teacher at his Lycée who is a confirmed Maoist. It is an amazing achievement: a familiar story (Vietnam) told from (what was to me) an entirely new point of view, with great wit as well as pathos.

  • Saigon Calling by Marcelino Truong is published by Arsenal Pulp Press (£22.99). To order a copy for £19.54 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

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