Near-perfect….Sullivan’s description and characterization are deft and sure, and his dialogue crackles, carrying always an emotional subtext….The book is a masterful blend of travelogue, love story, memoir, and cultural anthropology, with a dash of guidebook and phrasebook thrown in. Ten years from now, I hope to read the sequel to this book, the flip side, the States-side, the return, the dis-Orientation. In the interim, I’ll settle for any story Sullivan wants to tell.
If you’re the kind of reader who wishes that Jack Kerouac had lived a little longer and discovered the Far East, OVER THE MOAT should be at the top of your bedside stack. Not only does Sullivan sketch Vietnam with wide-eyed lyricism, but he imbues this story with a whiff of romanticism that has sadly become a bugaboo in current travel writing.
At its core this memoir is a love story, but one that dispenses with all the froth and fuss that have come to be associated with the genre….OVER THE MOAT [is] an essential entry in the canon of expatriate literature.
A deftly told tale, recounted without affectation….Anyone who picks up this splendid memoir will be delighted that true love prevailed at last.
OVER THE MOAT tells a tale we sorely need to hear at this moment in history. This true story of an American man and a Vietnamese woman gives us a vision of how to reach with love across the boundaries of race and culture in the aftermath of war. Elegantly written, redolent of our universal humanity, this is an important book.
A Vietnamese girl behind a shop counter in the city of Hue gives a young American one year to win her heart-what a wonderful premise for a novel. But OVER THE MOAT isn’t fiction; it’s a true story. Sullivan’s tenacity, passion, luck, and the purity of his love come through in his prose, and he has succeeded admirably both in the telling of this story and in the living of it.
OVER THE MOAT is a fine piece of writing. Here is a story about modern Vietnam. Here is the much-celebrated city of Hue. Here are two lovers trying their best despite language and culture to merely and genuinely be in love.
OVER THE MOAT carries us on a thoughtful journey along the crowded boulevards of dreams and the unlit paths of love and human understanding in a distant place where we turn a corner and catch an unexpected glimpse of ourselves. It is a gift.
James Sullivan has written a brilliant, intimate account of desperation. Cast within the layered textures of contemporary Vietnam, this is a vivid book with irresistible underpinnings: desire and discovery.
James Sullivan is the best kind of guide-adventurous, intelligent and desperately interested. OVER THE MOAT takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the country and the culture, never letting us forget that, as Americans, we’re just visitors.
