If You Lived Here - by Dana Sachs (Paperback)

About the Book

When Shelley Marino travels to Vietnam to adopt a child, she is accompanied by her friend, Mai, who finds the land greatly changed from the impoverished country she fled two decades before. This first novel is a tender and exquisitely told story from a powerful new writer.

From the Back Cover

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.

Review Quotes

"Precise and vivid. - Columbus Dispatch
"Poignant...A well-told story, with appealing characters, delightful moments and a satisfyingly real ending." - Charlotte Observer
" IF YOU LIVED HERE is filled with dramatic moments. Author Dana Sachs deserves to be listened to." - Things Asian
"This book is gorgeous and, more importantly, compelling... Behind every event is the heart and genius of this novelist, alive at every moment to the pleasure of life." - Rebecca Lee, author of The City is a Rising Tide
"This book is for anyone who appreciates what good fiction does: capturing human beings in all their angularity. Sachs is an expansive and generous writer who gives us, at all times, the pulse of life being lived. She's the real deal." - Louis Bayard, author of Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye
"...An uncannily moving novel of the Vietnamese experience in America. Dana Sachs is a one-woman power grid, her book electric company." - Tom Bissell, author of God Lives in St. Petersburg and The Father of All Things