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Silver Award Winner of the Nautilus Book Awards for 2017

 

“So Happiness to Meet You:
Foolishly, Blissfully Stranded in Vietnam”

 

by Karin Esterhammer


THE AUTHOR

I was born in a backwater town in Oregon — Portland — where it rained steadily throughout my entire childhood. Because I couldn’t go outside to play, I read everything within reach…

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THE BOOK

What happens after the aircraft and your life come to a complete stop? You start over in a far-away land. When the Great Recession obliterated our jobs and savings, my husband, son, and I sold everything and went to live in Vietnam…
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THE PRAISE

“A lighthearted memoir of new friends, delicious food, and culture shock.”

— Kirkus Review

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EXCERPTS

MOVING DAY

“Perhaps Dragon Man had read how America’s bank failures were causing economic catastrophe around the world, and now here I was, an evil capitalist interloper taking advantage of the cheaper prices in his country. He slipped off his sandals, gestured toward the boxes, and muttered something in Vietnamese that sounded suspiciously like “friggin’ foreigner.” I let out a nervous giggle.”

LIFE ON THE ALLEY

“Tin taught me to sip cà phê sữa đá from a spoon—ever…so…slowly.
The beverage was much too rich to gulp down, he said. Several days before, he had watched in horror as Robin, who hails from the land of Speedos and beer bellies, drank it down like he was on spring break in Fort Lauderdale.”