Novels
- If You Lived Here (2007)
- The Secret of the Nightingale Palace (2013)
Anthologies edited
- Two Cakes Fit for a King (2003)
Non fiction
- The House On Dream Street (2000)
- The Life We Were Given (2010)
Novels Book Covers
Anthologies edited Book Covers
Non fiction Book Covers
Dana Sachs Books Overview
If You Lived Here
Forty two year old Shelley Marino’s desperate yearning for a child has led her to one of the only doors still open to her: foreign adoption. It is a decision that strains and ultimately shatters her relationship with her husband, Martin the veteran of an Asian war who cannot reconcile what Shelley wants with what he knows about the world. But it unites her with Mai, who emigrated from Vietnam decades ago and has now acquired the accoutrements of the American dream in an effort to dull the memory of the tragedy that drove her from her homeland. As a powerful friendship is forged, two women embark on a life altering journey to the world Mai left behind to confront the stark realities of a painful past and embrace the promise of the future.
Two Cakes Fit for a King
For centuries, Vietnamese have sustained the history of their nation, both actual and mythic, through their folklore. These stories, passed from generation to generation, contain not only the national saga, but also fundamental cultural values that Vietnamese hold dear. Some stories, like ‘A Daughter’s Love,’ are imaginative accounts of early Vietnamese history. Others, like ‘The Anger of the Waters’ and the title story, ‘Two Cakes Fit for a King,’ provide colorful explanations of the world and how it works. ‘The Story of Watermelon Island’ offers readers a glimpse of the traditional agrarian values and way of life that are the foundation of Vietnamese society. Imaginative and captivating, funny and sometimes tragic, these tales have remained popular and culturally significant for Vietnamese, young and old, for hundreds of years. The intricate illustrations draw on centuries old painting styles and on natural imagery and everyday life in Vietnam.
The House On Dream Street
Dana Sachs went to Hanoi when tourist visas began to be offered to Americans; she was young, hopeful, ready to immerse herself in Vietnamese culture. She moved in with a family and earned her keep by teaching English, and she soon found that it was impossible to blend into an Eastern culture without calling attention to her Americanness particularly in a country where not long ago she would have been considered the enemy. But gradually, Vietnam turned out to be not only hospitable, but the home she couldn’t leave. Sachs takes us through two years of eye opening experiences: from her terrifying bicycle accidents on the busy streets of Hanoi to how she is begged to find a buyer for the remains of American ‘poes and meeas’ POWs and MIAs. The House On Dream Street is also the story of a community and the people who become inextricably, lovingly, a part of Sachs’s life, whether it’s her landlady who wonders why at twenty nine she’s not married, the children who giggle when she tries to speak the language, or Phai, the motorcycle mechanic she falls for. The House On Dream Street is both the story of a country on the cusp of change and of a woman learning to know her own heart.
The Life We Were Given
In April 1975, just before the fall of Saigon, the U.S. government launched ‘Operation Babylift,’ a highly publicized plan to evacuate nearly three thousand displaced Vietnamese children and place them with adoptive families overseas. Chaotic from start to finish, the mission gripped the world with a traumatic plane crash, international media snapping pictures of bewildered children traveling to their new homes, and families clamoring to adopt the waifs. Often presented as a great humanitarian effort, Operation Babylift provided an opportunity for national catharsis following the trauma of the American experience in Vietnam. Now, thirty five years after the war ended, Dana Sachs examines this unprecedented event more carefully, revealing how a single public policy gesture irrevocably altered thousands of lives, not always for the better. Though most of the children were orphans, many were not, and the rescue offered no possibility for families to later reunite. With sensitivity and balance, Sachs deepens her account by including multiple perspectives: birth mothers making the wrenching decision to relinquish their children; orphanage workers, military personnel, and doctors trying to ‘save’ them; politicians and judges attempting to untangle the controversies; adoptive families waiting anxiously for their new sons and daughters; and the children themselves, struggling to understand. In particular, the book follows one such child, Anh Hansen, who left Vietnam through Operation Babylift and, decades later, returned to reunite with her birth mother. Through Anh’s story, and those of many others, The Life We Were Given will inspire impassioned discussion and spur dialogue on the human cost of war, international adoption and aid efforts, and U.S. involvement in Vietnam.