The Ignorance of Bliss, Sandy Hanna
The Ignorance of Bliss, Sandy Hanna
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The Ignorance of Bliss
An American Kid in Saigon

Author: Sandy Hanna

Narrator: Sarah Mollo-Christensen

Unabridged: 10 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/19/2019

Synopsis

The Ignorance of Bliss tells the true story of ten-year-old Sandy, who moves with her American military family to Saigon, Vietnam, where her father, the Colonel, serves as a military advisor to the South Vietnamese Army.

In 1960s Saigon, Sandy finds a world of crushing poverty and extraordinary beauty; a world of streets, villas, and brothels, where politics and intrigue reside between plot and counterplot. Blissfully living a life of French decadence, Sandy maneuvers between coups, spies, bombings, corruption, and scandal as she and her thirteen-year-old brother, Tom, run an illicit baby powder and Hershey bar business on the black market and live a life of school, scouts, dance parties, and movies at the underground theater.

When the Colonel's counterpart, Colonel Le Van Sam, delivers an expose on the current ruling Diem regime, Sandy finds that her constant spying on her father's activities has brought her face to face with the reality of Vietnam and the anti-American sentiment that pervades it. This coming-of age story takes place in a turbulent country striving for nationalism, giving the listener a stunning look into the life of military dependents living abroad and the underlying ignorance that surrounded a little understood time in history.

About Sandy Hanna

A resident of New York City and Lambertville, New Jersey, Sandy Hanna grew up in Saigon, South Vietnam, and has been telling her story about that experience all of her life. She is an artist and a writer. She holds an MEd from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a comprehensive in the Biology of Cognition, and her undergraduate degree is from Knox College in Interdisciplinary programs in Science and Literature. She also spent a year studying design at the California Institute of the Arts with post graduate studies at Wharton. She was a designer of children's play spaces, Williamstown Children's Museum and Sesame Place (a joint venture between CTW and Busch Entertainment and facilities for handicapped children), as well as a marketing director and consultant for a variety of diverse industries, including children's museums, theme parks, and modular construction. Her passion, however, is storytelling.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jerry

Finding herself in a foreign land at the cross roads of history Sandy Hanna’s memoir excels at many of my favorite subgenres: I love coming of age memoirs, memoirs about finding one’s self in a foreign land, memoirs that intersect powerful moments in history, memoirs about growing up in the sixties,......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

I learned a lot from reading this eloquent memoir. Hanna was not only fearless in sharing her childhood as a Colonel's daughter but her writing is beautiful, humble, raw, and witty. I loved the photographs and newspaper articles she included. I never knew until I read this that BRATS is actually an......more

Goodreads review by Judy

As a fellow Army brat, I really identified with the author. Her description of military life was spot on. Those who haven’t lived the brat life don’t understand how different it is. I loved this book and had a difficult time putting it down. Her story is both fascinating and amazing. But additionall......more

Goodreads review by Jackie Martin

Wow, what a ride! Enjoyed every page. Some made me sad some had me laughing out loud. But anyone who has be a military dependent. Has to read this. The father was just like my father and The brother was just like my brothers and sister.......more

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