From Publishers Weekly
As an administrator for the Friends Service Committee in Quang Ngai Province, Borton (Sensing the Enemy: An American Among the Boat People of Vietnam) was one of the few Americans to work in both South and North Vietnam during the war. Much later, 1987-1993, she lived in Vietnamese villages, including a former Viet Cong base where women played a prominent role during the war. Her beautifully modulated memoir is less about the war itself than about the unique character of the village women: their formalized social interaction, use of traditional medicine, food-gathering and preparation and the Buddhist beliefs that guide their behavior. Borton's gently compelling narrative follows the rhythm of the seasons and weather patterns and records the jarring advent of Western-style consumerism with the appearance of jeans, tennis shoes, motorcycles and VCRs. Describing her life in Hanoi ("Vietnam's largest village"), where in 1990 she opened a Quaker Service office, she conveys her great affection for its hurly-burly pace. The author conversed with Vietnamese women fluently in their own language and thus is able to present fuller portraits than could be found elsewhere in English. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Lady Borton worked in South Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 with civilian amputee victims of the war. She also went to North Vietnam, worked with the Vietnamese boat people in a refugee camp in Malaysia after the war, made several trips to Vietnam in the late 1980s, and today is field director of Quaker Service-Vietnam in Hanoi. Her previous book, Sensing the Enemy: An American Woman Among the Boat People of Vietnam (1984), was a compassionate account of her earlier work with the Vietnamese. This book is an even more compelling sketch of her later years in Vietnam, largely among ordinary peasants, especially the women. It is a testament to the ingenuity, tenacity, and indomitable spirit of the Vietnamese people, who suffered over 40 years of wars, and it offers a rare Western glimpse into their culture and soul. No matter what one's views on the war, this is a sensitive, insightful vignette.Joe Dunn, Converse Coll., Spartanburg, S.C.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
What is Vietnam really like? Borton presents the stories of Vietnamese village women who lived through what they call "the American War." Frequently in Vietnam since the late 1960s, Borton, the first American allowed to live in a Vietnamese village since the war's end, listened to the gentle and fierce women warriors who smuggled weapons hidden in fish sauce, concocted camouflage from banana leaves, dug tunnels, carried messages through enemy territory, gave away their children to keep them safe, and all the while tended to the daily work of village life--providing food, burying and visiting the dead, observing religious holidays, midwifing babies. Borton retells these women's stories with an ear experienced in the language, an eye for the details of village life, and deep compassion and respect for the Vietnamese people. Besides bringing us fresh perspectives on the war, she educates us about Vietnamese history and customs in a truly remarkable book. Mary Ellen Sullivan

ANNOTATION

Borton's women friends recall their war stories of climbing mountains, hiding in rivers, capturing prisoners, transporting hidden guns, and mourning their dead. From a young intellectual to the 81-year-old peasant who stitched the national flag, their words convey to American readers the ordinary people against whom we fought. 24 pages of photos. Maps.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

After Sorrow spans an American woman's twenty-five years of experience in Viet Nam. It is the story of the ordinary Vietnamese whom Americans fought against but never had the chance to know. Lady Borton has come to know these people intimately from her work there, first in a Quaker Service rehabilitation center for civilian amputees in South Viet Nam (1969-71), and up to the present. After Sorrow centers on the last eight years, during which Lady made repeated visits to three villages, one a former Viet Cong base in the Mekong Delta of southern Viet Nam, another a rice-farming commune in the Red River Delta of northern Viet Nam, and the third, Ha Noi, which Vietnamese call their "largest village." In this deeply moving memoir, Lady's women friends recall their own roles in the struggles that climaxed in the American War. These are war stories of a kind we have not heard before: women's stories of courage, guile, patience, and fate; of climbing mountains and hiding in rivers and capturing prisoners, of carrying rifles beneath vats of fish sauce in canoes, of mourning husbands, of thousands missing. In Lady Borton's previous book, Sensing the Enemy, she wrote about the Boat People who left Viet Nam. After Sorrow is the strong and uplifting story of the people who stayed.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

As an administrator for the Friends Service Committee in Quang Ngai Province, Borton (Sensing the Enemy: An American Among the Boat People of Vietnam) was one of the few Americans to work in both South and North Vietnam during the war. Much later, 1987-1993, she lived in Vietnamese villages, including a former Viet Cong base where women played a prominent role during the war. Her beautifully modulated memoir is less about the war itself than about the unique character of the village women: their formalized social interaction, use of traditional medicine, food-gathering and preparation and the Buddhist beliefs that guide their behavior. Borton's gently compelling narrative follows the rhythm of the seasons and weather patterns and records the jarring advent of Western-style consumerism with the appearance of jeans, tennis shoes, motorcycles and VCRs. Describing her life in Hanoi (``Vietnam's largest village''), where in 1990 she opened a Quaker Service office, she conveys her great affection for its hurly-burly pace. The author conversed with Vietnamese women fluently in their own language and thus is able to present fuller portraits than could be found elsewhere in English. Photos not seen by PW. (May)

Library Journal