Customer Reviews

Dragon House

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

John Shors continues to establish his reputation as one of this decade's more important writers, an author who understands the art of blending artistic prose with an always surprising depth of knowledge of the cultures he chooses to explore in his fascinating novels - from India in his debut BENEATH A MARBLE SKY, to war time South Pacific in BESIDE A BURNING SEA, and now to Vietnam in this absorbing novel DRAGON HOUSE. There are passages in his works that suggest the gifts of W. Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad, Eugene Burdick and William Lederer ('The Ugly American'), and Evelyn Waugh, and yet he maintains his own literary style, mixing observations of physical circumstances with the manner in which the world as he finds it interfaces with his well-sculpted characters.

Shors creates characters about whom we care - Iris Rhodes, a devoted daughter of a Vietnam Vet who grants her dying father's wish to create a haven for the brutally neglected street children in the country where his life and conscience changed in the Vietnam War, and Noah Woods, a severely disabled Iraqi War Vet consumed with anger and guilt who joins Iris in moving to Ho Chi Minh City (ne Saigon) in an attempt to salvage his life. Once the two arrive in Ho Chi Minh City they discover the difficulties that surround their proposed project and it is only though the growing friendship with the people of the city that they are able to make a dent in the struggle for life that surrounds them. Very slowly but with solid technique Shors introduces the various Vietnamese children who will benefit from the project. In taking his time to completely cast his novel he offers in depth details about both pre-war and post-war Vietnam - the customs, the atmosphere, the foods, the smells, the dreams, both tenuous and crushed, that have been with the people of Vietnam since the devastation of the most unpopular war in history. It all works well as Shors accompanies quietly on a journey that makes a solid statement about how each of us can heal from past injuries.

This is a novel that stands well on its own merits, a strong contender for prizes and a position on the bestseller list. But it does more. For those of us who coped with the war in Vietnam firsthand, this book offers fresh insights as we now look back on that time. Shors gives us a solid example of how Vietnam Vets can find succor and growth from an experience that paralyzed many young minds. For that Shors deserves our thanks. But even beyond that, DRAGON HOUSE restores our faith that superb storytelling with the technique of a polished literary mind is still alive and well! Grady Harp, August 09

Iris' father, a troubled Vietnam veteran, never lives to see his dream of opening a center for Vietnamese street children fufilled. As a man haunted by the atrocities of the war, Iris' father was not able to give her much emotional and physical support throught her life. Nevertheless, after his death, Iris picks up where her father left off and travels to Vietnam. Noah, a childhood friend and Iraqi war veteran, also decides to accompany her. After losing one of his legs overseas and witnessing his own fare share of trauma, Noah has a grim outlook on the world. His life now revolves around trying to dull his pain with alchohol and pills. He travels with Iris more to appease his mother than out of any altruisitc motive of his own.

It was obvious to me that John Shors had done his research on the cultural sights, sounds and morays of Vietnam. Upon looking up his biography, I wasn't surprised to read that he has in fact traveled the world extensively --he tought English in Kyoto Japan for three years then backpacked through different countries for the next three. When I was reading Dragon House, I felt like he instantly transported me into Ho Chi Mihn City where I was able to witness everything through my own eyes firsthand. I could almost smell the spices in the air and hear the clamor of all the congestion and voices within the overcrowded and dirty streets.

From the street children Mai and Minh who live under a bridge, to Tam, with her loving grandmother, I was extremely moved by the character appeal of the street children. The adversity these children have to overcome just to surivive day to day left me reflecting on my own life, and made me realize just how trivial some of the small trials and tribulations I tend to focus on really are. The pacing of the story was fast and intriguing, and I found myself anxiously flipping pages in the hopes of finding out if everyone was going to be "ok". That sentiment extended to Iris and Noah as well. I really loved the idea of both of these troubled people coming to Vietnam and finding renewed faith in themselves and the world through their efforts with the center.

Ultimately, Dragon House is a poignant story of hope, redemption and most importantly, sheer love. I read it over a span of twenty four hours and could not put it down. This book touched me on a deep, personal level. You would think a novel about the plight of street children would leave you feeling exhausted and downtrodden, but after devouring this page turner, I was uplifted by the themes of love, friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.

Note- A portion of the funds from Dragon House will be donated to The Blue Dragon Children's Foundation which works with children in need throughout Vietnam, offering them services and support in getting back into school and breaking out of the cycle of poverty. There is already one center open in Hanoi and is widening it's reach into Ho Chi Mihn City as well. To make Dragon House more affordable, Shores had the book printed as an economically priced paperback too!

I cant throw enough clichés at this book - mesmerizing, touching, moving, heart-wrenching, compelling - and still I fail to capture the terrible beauty of it. The street children of Vietnam not only don't have a home, they generally don't have any parent or adult figure to help them. This book is the tale of two Americans, with plenty of troubles of their own, who go to Vietnam to open a center to help take care of as many street children as they can. The detail is wonderful, letting you understand how crowded and wild Ho Chi Mihn City really is. Clearly the author spent a lot of time traveling around the area and probably saw unbelievably terrible situations in many cases. But Shors wisely chose to tell only two of the thousands of stories; any more would have been more than the reader could possibly bear. The book focuses on Qui and Tam, the granddaughter who is dying of leukemia, and the story of Mai and Minh, two children under the dubious "protection" of an opium-fiend named Loc. The stories are sad and yet still hopeful, the center a haven of childhood for many children who didn't have one before. And as a bonus, John Shors is donating some of the proceeds of the book to the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, which works with children in need in Vietnam. See [...] for further information.

The first thing that captured my attention with Dragon House was that it is not scene, character nor plot-driven, all three play an equal role in this book. As you read, you can hear the scooters as they pass, smell the fish at the market and see the bright colors in every direction. Within seconds, you are transported into the the midst of modern-day Vietnam. You not only hear the lilting voice of Thien as she goes about her work, you feel her contentment. The emotional pain Noah suffers tears at your soul and your world suddenly grows dim and dark as you travel with Sahn on his beat. Feeling Qui's helplessness as she watches her beloved Tam grow weaker drains your energy and you want to run as Mai sees Loc walking toward her. This is not a book you can sit and read cover to cover, for the emotion is so strong you need to stop and regain your composure.

The amount of research that has gone into Dragon House is greater than anything else I have ever read. I have read autobiographies that didn't seem as real and did not give me the feeling that I was living the story. John Shor has a talent that does not come from a book, but one that can only be said to be part of his very essence. He brings his setting into your living room and his characters into your mind.

I could not decide who was the main character in Dragon House. Every character was so real and played their part so well, and all were equally important in making the book come alive. If I had to give a name to the central character, it would be Love. Each character fights his or her own demon, whether in the form of another person, a situation or an internal one. In the end, it is mere love, in all its many forms that allows the individuals to move beyond those demons and see the beauty in life. Each learns that sometimes the very beauty and peace they seek is there inside them the whole time. John Shors wrote a book about the street children in Vietnam--he wrote a blueprint to love for the world.

Dragon House by John Shors is a book that I can honestly say has affected me. The story focuses a lot on the street children in Vietnam and I found even when I put this book down in between reading it that I thought of these children. Even now after finishing it these children are still on my mind. This novel really tugged at my heart; it horrified me to learn what these street children live through and yet to know there are people in the world trying to help them gives hope as well. To me, this is a mark of a very good novel - a book that grabs you and doesn't let go and leaves you feeling as though you've experienced something that changes you in some way.

The story begins with Iris, sitting in the hospital with her father who is dying. They are talking about the past and regrets. One thing that Iris' father regrets is not finishing the center for street children that he was building in Vietnam. Iris tells him before he passes that she will travel there and bring his dream to life; she will finish the center. Iris' father had experienced the war firsthand and suffered from it; the center was his way of giving back. As a child Iris hadn't gotten a lot of emotional support from her father although she believes he loved her. Traveling to complete the center is a way of healing for Iris as well, a way to become closer to her father even in his death.

Iris leaves for Vietnam with an old childhood friend, Noah, who is an Iraqi war veteran himself and been disabled by it, losing a leg. He is bitter and angry and wondering what life could ever possibly hold for him again. Noah is living life on pain pills and booze and only going to Vietnam with Iris to please his mother. They arrive in Vietnam and Iris is surprised to find that her father had named the center after her; she had never known this. She sees all he has done and all that needs to be done but in time she really realizes his dream and believes in it for herself too. What her father wanted to do for these street children was amazing and she felt that need to do the same now.

I think what I loved about this book the most was how connected I felt with the characters and the place. The way that John Shors describes Vietnam really makes you feel as though you are there on the busy streets or trying to maneuver around on the roads on a scooter. You can see vividly in your mind the bridges that street children live under or the hovels that others are surviving in and it just completely grips your heart. Yet on the other side of the coin you can also see the beauty of Vietnam and this is what struck me as well. How if you look, you can always find a small bit of beauty in something whether it be the clouds in a blue sky or a rainbow.

There isn't a main character that I didn't like; Iris is a kind and caring woman; she truly cares about what happens to these children. Noah, who eventually finds a way out of his fog learns that he can still love and be loved. The street people who just take your breath away like Qui and Tam. Qui is Tam's grandmother and the love that they have for each other was a beautiful thing to read about. Mai and Minh, two street children who have been horribly abused throughout their lives and forced to work for a cruel man are two children you won't soon forget. Then there is Thien, who was an assistant to Iris' father and stayed on to help Iris. With her quiet strength, she really brings everyone together and you could literally feel her hope and positive outlook through the words on the page. She may not have had much but she felt lucky to have what she did. It makes you sit back and look at all you have sometimes and wonder why you may not be happy when others in countries like this can be happy with so much less.

I had so many passages that I read and reread but here are a few of my more favorite ones...

* 'Mai understood because she also knew how to place herself in the company of others, to pretend that she inhabited other worlds. Minh was better at the game, of course. But she still played, still imagined that she walked among schoolgirls, ate pho on the street with her father, read a book while waiting for her mother at the market. Mai, like Minh, played the game because it transported her from a place of hunger and pain, weariness and fear. In the pretend worlds she didn't have to worry whether or not Minh would win, whether Loc would beat them, whether she'd have to someday sell herself to survive. In these worlds she went to school, Minh was her brother, and she was loved and protected by those who had given her life. (pg 35, eBook edition)

* 'It wasn't just happiness, or love, or contentment. It was a sense that the human spirit wanted to soar. Despite all the suffering, pain, betrayal, and ugliness of life, the human spirit couldn't be easily beaten, easily caged. (pg 286, eBook edition)


While Dragon House is difficult to read at times, it also offers us hope. Hope that centers such as these will be built and will help street children to build a life where they can be normal kids and have a life that isn't full of pain. John Shors is planning to donate some of the funds generated by the sale of Dragon House to an organization called Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. This is a group that works with children in crisis throughout Vietnam. It offers them this chance at a different life than they've been dealt so far. Be sure to visit John Shor's website to learn more about him, his books and this charity.

I would absolutely recommend Dragon House, not only because it transports you to another world but it addresses an important issue which is the plight of many homeless children throughout our countries. John Shors has brought a great story to life in Dragon House and I certainly look forward to reading more from him.

When Iris's father dies, she finds that she wants to continue his legacy by establishing his children's center in Vietnam. The center was not completed and Iris decides to abandon her career as newspaper book reviewer and fly to Vietnam to help. She takes her neighbor Noah with her, a man impaired both physically and mentally from his experience in the Iraq War, in the hopes that a purpose will give his life meaning and direction. In Saigon, Iris and Noah are amazed by the kindness and warmth of the Vietnamese and the clever street children, who quickly realize the goals of the center and wish to be enrolled. In this cutthroat world, however, it isn't all as easy as it should be, and Iris and Noah find themselves fighting to save the children they come to love.

It seems to me that this is a book about hope. Iris hopes to build a center beyond all the others, to truly educate girls and make them into productive and happy citizens. Noah eventually learns to hope again through Thien, who is at peace with the universe. The children all hope to be let into the center, so they have a chance for a brighter future. Everyone is making something better, whether it's themselves or society, and the entire book has a bright, cheerful message in the end.

While Iris and Noah are admirable people, it is really the street children who make this book the wonderful read it is. There are three children who are really focused on, Minh, Mai, and Tam. Minh and Mai are brother and sister; Minh doesn't talk, has only one hand, and plays connect four with tourists to earn money, while Mai acts as his voice and sells fans. They are bright, innovative children and it's impossible not to completely fall in love with them and hope that they can seize a brighter future through Iris and Noah. Unfortunately, they have a more powerful man who has them under his thumb and who insists on making things difficult. Tam is a very sick girl who is mostly cared for by her grandmother, and it's here that the tragic aspect of the book makes its mark. Tam is suffering from childhood leukemia and 90% of children survive it if they get care early enough. Unfortunately, Tam did not, given that they live on the street, and while her personality is almost completely obscured by her illness, the love between her and her grandmother is so touching, as is the attitude of all the other characters towards them.

Saigon itself (as it is called in the book) almost acts as a character; since Minh and Mai are poor they move around quite a lot and allow descriptions of most of the city, as well as the hovels in which they and Tam live. I really enjoyed the descriptions in the book and felt that the author did an admirable job contrasting wealth and poverty and getting across the feel of both the city and the Vietnamese people. The plot is not particularly tight, especially in the beginning, but it doesn't seem to matter because I was too busy enjoying the characters and descriptions and hoping for something better to come their way.

Dragon House is completely different from John Shors's other work, but I really enjoyed my time spent with it. It is both a charming story and inspires us to do something better in the world by exposing the evils he's seen. I definitely recommend it.

Dragon House is a novel about current conditions in Vietnam, the environment and the people of Ho Chi Minh City. In his story about the establishment of a center for disadvantaged children, John Shors gives an interesting description of the former Saigon and some of the surrounding countryside. The city streets are teeming with people, many riding scooters. The machines weave in an out of traffic on broad avenues with 5 star hotels, and move in tightly packed groups in the narrow streets with pre-war buildings and homeless camps. The Mekong River may be polluted, but it is still beautiful and wide with water drifting down from Laos, Cambodia, and China. Lush vegetation and acres of rice paddies surround the river. Also, some of the action takes place to the north of the city in Nha Trang on the tropical coast of the South China Sea.

The stories of the characters illustrate that much human degradation and environmental destruction remains after war. It is clear, however, that the human spirit is hard to put in a cage or tie with a rope to a tree. Physical and psychological pain is the aftermath of war and this leads some people to hate and seek self-destruction. Some are more realistic and simply try to survive and do some good for others. A positive message of the novel is that survivors of war can advance from former group to the latter and experience redemption and learn forgiveness. When this happens to the characters, the compound pain does not just disappear. It loses its power to destroy hope and love.

Dragon House is written in a simple, straight forward style appropriate for adolescents and adults. The characters range in age from young childhood to older adulthood. The structure of the novel mirrors the history of war; war experiences and their lasting effects dominate the early chapters setting the stage for many of the novel's episodes. The direct effects of war decrease in later chapters, but the reader remains aware of its continual impact. Shors makes the point that the Iraq war is ongoing and dominates the lives of many. As with Vietnam, it will end eventually and release most people from their spiritual prison.

I recommend this novel to anyone directly affected by war, especially the Vietnam and Iraq conflicts. It is a very good novel for adolescents and young adults who would like to see the reality of war's aftermath and see the tremendous resilience of people who retain hope and compassion for others. There is a reader's guide section at the end of the novel with an interview of John Shors and study questions for reading clubs and schools.

John Shors' new book lives up to my expectations since I loved "Beneath Marble Skies." The new book is much more believable and well developed than his second book. "Dragon House" focuses on the efforts of two Americans to fulfill the dream of building a safe place for street children in Vietnam. The two children Shors focuses on, Mai and Minh, are optimistic and enterprising and in serious danger from an arch villain who "protects" and "employs" them.

Noah and Iris, the Americans, each have issues to conquer. Noah carries serious depression from serving in Iraq and Iris is trying to find her place in the world. Thien, a Vietnamese woman with a somewhat mysterious background (did I miss something here?) is charming and joyful and brings the Americans to a deeper understanding of people vs. culture. This was an entertaining and insightful reading experience. I would have given 5 stars had the villain been more multi-dimensional.

Well researched and written from the heart, "Dragon House" is about the plight of street children in Vietnam and the efforts being made to provide them with the emotional and physical resources they need to thrive. Descriptions of life in the city and the contrasting images of the rural areas are well done as are the author's insights into the political, economic and emotional complexity of the many people impacted by the long lasting effects of war in general and the "American War" in particular. While the inherent truth of the story is significant and the work of agencies such as the Blue Dragon Children's Foundation worthy, I cannot give the book the overwhelmingly positive comments that other reviewers have made. The author has a deeply personal interest in this topic and in supporting these efforts, but did not present it with the smoothness or subtlety of his previous books. The characters are not particularly nuanced and include a predictable and stereotypical line up of villains, victims and transformational encounters. The construction and resolution of the story feels contrived and the outcome predictable. "Dragon House" is not a literary masterpiece but is worth reading because it challenges the belief that military engagement is the most reasonable way to resolve conflict, brings the work of the Blue Dragon Foundation to a broad audience and shows the healing power of recognizing and meeting the needs of another person.

Dragon House by John Shors

It is rare when an author can bring tears to your eyes within the first few pages of a book, but once again John Shors has the ability to do so with ease in his newest novel Dragon House. This amazingly poignant novel brings to life a world most of us will never know, that of the lives of the people of Vietnam.

How rare it is to find an author so capable of bringing a world of diverse characters to life in one's mind so easily, yet Shors does so with such ease that you don't even realize how intimate you have become with each of the characters until you close the book shut. The story is one of absolute beauty and somehow you find that beauty in a country that normally would most likely be considered ugly. The beauty of the country comes out with each of the characters themselves, from those native to the country to those who are strangers brought there by different and often unknown missions.

I personally found the depth of the characters unremarkable. You get to know each of the characters as if you have had the opportunity to creep into their inner-person, often finding things you would never assume to find. Sahn, the former soldier turned police officer, so crast and angry yet so full of love for his country that he cannot help but allow those he sees as intruders do their job in helping the children of the country he loves so much. You start off disliking the man, hating his anger and end up realizing why his anger is so deep and how it's truly just a facade to protect his own well-being. The children in the story will steal your heart, from the sickly Tam to the lost souls of Mai and Mahn. Your heart is stolen by the children as much as it does the main characters & adults of the story itself; leaving you aching for each of their souls. The main characters are delightful. Sweet Thien, filled with such love, kindness and tenderness that she brings such attributes out in even the least likely characters in the book. Thien sees the beauty most overlook in her country and knows how to bring that beauty into the eyes of those she is with. Noah, angry with what life has handed him tries to find answers in so many different places, including the bottom of a bottle, only to find them in the most unassuming of places. He overcomes anger, pain and hurt by finding his inner soul he has lost as he takes on a project that becomes his reason for living. He is truly determined & even in the highest of pain he cannot be stopped now that he has a purpose. Iris, unsure why she's there until her heart is shown the "real" Vietnam by Thien, hopes to pursue the dreams of the man she still isn't sure about, her own father. Often frightened of the unknown ways of this strange country she aspires to bring a huge project to life that her father had begun but died before he could finish. So many obstacles in the way but such need and determination make it something she knows she must accomplish. These 3 main characters alone will touch your heart. The children and people of this land will touch your heart even deeper. The book truly is as strong as it's characters.

Once again, another absolutely excellent & profound piece of work written by John Shors! It is honestly "yet another" of the beautiful masterpieces he seems to be able to put together for his readers. If you're in need of a vacation to a land you would normally never get a chance to visit, this may just be your ticket. Filled with an amazing, touching storyline and unbelievably real & deep characters you won't walk away disappointed. 5 Stars PLUS!