Author James Sullivan has returned to Scarborough after a two-year stay in Vietnam, where he wrote a new guidebook for National Geographic. He is also the author of “Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam,” a memoir of his first trip to the country. Sullivan, 42, lives with his wife, Thuy, and two children Cullen, 7, and Vivian, 5. In Scarborough, he will continue working for his media consulting firm, Mandarin Media. On Thursday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m., Sullivan will speak about Vietnam at the Scarborough Public Library. Last week, he sat down the The Current to talk about his travels, his career as a writer and the actors that almost played him in the movie of his life.
Q: What specifically are you planning on talking about at the library?
A: I was over in Vietnam for the last couple of years. I went back over there for a couple of reasons. First, I went to do a National Geographic story about where I lived from 1992 to 1994. I went back 10 years after I got married there to see if it was as beautiful as I remembered it. I did this story for National Geographic, and they asked me if I wanted to do a travel book. So, we thought, let’s uproot everything and go to Vietnam. We have two little kids and school wasn’t much of an issue. I’m going to talk about the legacy of the French colonial and American presence in Vietnam.
For at least 10 years, Vietnam was at the center of the world’s attention, probably because that’s where the United States decided to make its stand against communism. There was an incredible investment into Vietnam by the United States, not only as a military presence but culturally and socially. I’m talking about things like walking down the street of the Chinese section of Cholon and seeing a traffic light box that says Cedar Rapids, Iowa. No matter where you are, you don’t have to go far before you encounter some flotsam from the United States’ presence. There are ghosts of the presence in Vietnam that haunt the country in a very resonant fashion. I checked into a hotel one night and looked out, and there was a lovely distinctive rooftop of a penthouse building. It took me a minute, but it was from one of the four very iconic photos from the Vietnam War. The helicopter on the penthouse is very much a symbol of the precarious perch the United States had on Vietnam. I could go on and on about these examples. I’ll be talking about these places. The other half of it has to do with the legacy of French colonialism in Vietnam that is much more beautiful, but also a very sordid sight, as well.
Q: How did you get your start in writing?
A: I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write, all the way back to kindergarten. I remember a desire to get things down on paper as a way to make sense of things I didn’t understand. I went to graduate school at the University of Iowa, and it was all about short stories, but for me it’s about making order from chaos. Math and physics is how I started out, and I had an epiphany as a sophomore at Colby. I had this very crunchy, back-to-earth professor who called me and a classmate into his office. He said to the classmate, ‘You understand the concepts, but you don’t how to communicate.’ He said, ‘Jim, you just don’t understand the concepts.’ So, I switched to English. I worked for a while at the paper here. Then, I fled to California, and then I went to graduate school.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on another book. I’m shifting gears out of magazine writing. I’m just tired of it. The writing that I’m doing is the stuff I want to do instead of for money. In Vietnam, I established relationships with a lot of hotels and resorts and golf courses. So, I built a company on the side. It’s a PR company, so I work that business all day long from here because it’s possible.
Q: Where do you think you will end up living?
A: I grew up in Massachusetts, in Quincy. I don’t want to go back to Greater Boston. With Maine, there’s just no comparison. Every time my family comes up, I wonder if they’ll have a moment of enlightenment and realize it’s just better. When I think of my roots, I think of this area. We’ll always go back to Vietnam, but this is where home is.
Q: Was it hard having your kids with you in Vietnam?
A: They’re in kindergarten and second grade at Pleasant Hill School. It was at the same time wonderful and frustrating. They both became fluent in their mother’s tongue, and they got close with her family. What was frustrating was that there wasn’t an international school. To keep Cullen apace with his classmates, we had to bring in tutors. But, they got a great, two-year window in the world.
Q: If there was a movie about your life, what would it be called?
A: The easy answer is “Over the Moat,” since they were almost going to make a movie about my life. An agent will always try to sell film rights to a book, if it has the arc of a movie in it. A script went to Martin Scorsese, Edward Norton and Leonardo DiCaprio. That story is a memoir. I think of it as a memoir of courtship. I met my wife at the beginning of my time in Vietnam, and she said, ‘If something’s going to happen, you have to stay here for a year,’ and a lot of things happened. I got kicked out of the country. That’s what the book is about.
Q: Who would you want to play you?
A: One of those actors that come out of Boston. You know, like the Wahlbergs, but they’re getting too old now to play someone was 27 at the time. Anyone with a good Boston accent.
Q&A with James Sullivan – Vietnam travels inspire writer
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