IGNORANCE OF BLISS,
Lambertville artist and author, Sandy Hanna, will launch the release of her new book “The Ignorance of Bliss: An American Kid in Saigon” with the opening of an art exhibition, film presentation by adults who were once Saigon ‘kids’ and a book signing. It will take place on Saturday, January 19th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the New Hope Arts Center, 2A Stockton, Avenue in New Hope, PA. Planned in cooperation with Farley’s Bookshop, books will be available at the Opening and then be sold at their store at 44 S. Main Street in New Hope. The art exhibit will feature sixteen new paintings by Hanna of Saigon scenes inspired by her father’s photographs taken in Vietnam between 1960 and 1962. The art show will remain open January 20th, 27th, and 28th from noon to 5 pm.
“The Ignorance of Bliss: An American Kid in Saigon”, Hanna tells the true story of her life as a ten-year-old when her American military family moved to Saigon in Vietnam where her father, the Colonel, served as a military advisor to the South Vietnamese Army. The cover of the book is her painting titled "The Spy." It depicts her as an eight-year old wearing her Brownie uniform that she says she wore whenever she was "on stakeout" spying on the Colonel's (her father’s) activities which she says she began when she discovered his WWII photos of a concentration camp he had come across when with General Patton's Third Army. The painting portrays her standing as if stopped in mid stride in an environment with no detail other than her written words. Carol Cruickshanks, Executive Director, New Hope Arts, said, “Sandy’s story is engaging and entertaining and a fitting exploration of a culture forgotten and clouded by the history of the Vietnam War. New Hope Arts is about visual art and literature, music--all the arts."
In the book, set in the 1960s in Saigon, the young girl (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 with her thirteen-year-old brother, Tom. She said, “Very early in my life I became a self-appointed spy!” This coming-of age story takes place in a turbulent country striving for nationalism, giving the reader a stunning look into the life of military dependents living abroad and the underlying ignorance that surrounded a little understood time in history.
Along with the book release and the art exhibit, a short film will play entitled “De J’ai Vue Saigon”. It was created by other Saigon “Kids’’ living overseas during these turbulent times. Clips from preserved pieces of film give yet another glimpse into the world that surrounded military and government dependents growing up in this foreign land.
For more information, visit www.newhopearts.org. You can learn more about Sandy Hanna at www.Facebook.com/SandyHannaAuthor