$45.00 U.S. (trade discount)
No e-book has been authorized.
Hardcover/PLC
192 pages with 113 color photographs by the author and 1 map
11.875″ x 11.0″ (horizontal/landscape)
ISBN: 978–1–938086–57–1
Published in December 2018
Distributed by Casemate/IPM
www.casemateipm.com
by Chuck Forsman
with an essay by Le Ly Hayslip
A visual journey to Vietnam like no other!
Vietnam is an ancient and beautiful land, with a deep history of occupational conflict that remains an enigma in Americans’ collective memory. It is still easy to forget that Vietnam is a country and not a war, even as America’s role in Vietnam inflamed and divided the American citizenry in ways that are still evident today. It is as if Vietnam’s civil war resurrected our own. And if you are a Vietnam War veteran or a family member of a vet, it’s worse, because, even after a half-century, many of the wounds won’t heal. What do you do when you have given up on forgetting?
Chuck Forsman is one of a sizeable number of Vietnam vets who have found deep satisfaction in revisiting Vietnam, supporting charities, orphanages, and clinics, doing volunteer work and more—anything to redeem what the U.S. military did there. He is also a distinguished painter and photographer who depicts places and environments in ways that become unforgettable visual experiences for the contemporary viewer.
Lost in Vietnam chronicles a visual journey, not a country. The photographs were taken during five visits averaging two months each, from 1999 to 2010. Forsman traveled largely by motorbike throughout the entire country—south, central, and north—sharing his experiences through amazing images of Vietnam’s lands and people. His journey involved a twofold quest: as a veteran, to gain some consolation and understanding, and, as an artist, to make art. Le Ly Hayslip, the renowned author and philanthropist, introduces the book and sets the tone for Forsman’s incredible sojourn.
About
About the Author
Chuck Forsman is a painter, photographer, and Professor of Art Emeritus at the University of Colorado. He has had more than fifty one-person shows, half of which were in museums and art centers, and his work is included in more than twenty public collections, including the Denver Art Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, and Princeton University Museum of Art. Forsman has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts awards and an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, among other honors. His previous published books are Arrested Rivers: Paintings by Chuck Forsman (University Press of Colorado, 1994), Western Rider: Views from a Car Window (Center for American Places, 2003), Along Buddha’s River: Currents of Change on the Mekong (self-published, 2011), and Walking Magpie: On and off the Leash (George F. Thompson Publishing, in association with the Denver Art Museum, 2013).
About the Essayist
Le Ly Hayslip is a writer, philanthropist, and humanitarian whose life has been documented in Oliver Stone’s 1993 film, Heaven and Earth. She is the author of two path-breaking memoirs, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace (Doubleday, 1989) and Child of War, Woman of Peace (Doubleday, 1993), and the founder of two charitable organizations, the East Meets West Foundation and Global Village Foundation, which are dedicated to improving the health and welfare of the needy in Vietnam and Asia.
Slide Show
Praise
Read an interview with Forsman and take a peek at photos from the book here on Smithsonian.org.
“What a remarkable set of photographs! Chuck Forsman’s exploration of Vietnam, of getting lost in Vietnam, captures strikingly the beauty of human life and livelihood in a landscape many of us once reviled and worked to destroy and to which so many Vietnam vets have been drawn back again and again to ease our culpability. Le Ly Hayslip’s emotional understanding of attachment to place uniquely frames the photos of her motherland, and every picture tells a story of people struggling daily for means to survive and to fashion meaning in their lives. Lost in Vietnam is that rare book that heals even as it enlightens.”
—Joseph S. Wood, Senior Scholar, American Geographical Society, author of The New England Village, and combat engineer in Vietnam, 1970–1971
“Chuck Forsman’s writings and beautifully composed and crafted photographs truthfully document the landscape and busyness and spirit of the cities and villages in post-war Vietnam. With this book, Forsman gives us a face, a community, and a landscape to consider. The images reveal the resilience and colorful culture of the Vietnamese people and the beauty and rejuvenation of their land. It celebrates the dreams and desires of a people and place that have known the tragedy of war for too long. The author has reconciled his involvement in the war through extensive travel and interaction with the people of Vietnam. Perhaps through his collection of photographic work and writings along with Le Ly Hayslip’s moving essay, Vietnam veterans such as me will more easily follow the tradition of the Vietnamese people, who look forward to a happy and productive future and who do not inhabit a motorbike’s rearview mirror to the past.”
—Gary Freeburg, Professor of Art and Director of the Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art (retired) at James Madison University, author of The Valley of 10,000 Smokes: Revisiting the Alaskan Sublime, and Gunner’s Mate, Special Weapons, USS Oriskany CVA 34, Vietnam, 1971–1973
“I bought this book for my husband who is a Vietnam vet and who is increasingly disabled from his exposure to Agent Orange. From the book title to the deep respect and stirring images and words, one knows they have not opened an ordinary book about one’s experiences in Vietnam. The author’s skill, knowledge, and honesty in words and image leaves one with an awe and respect for this ancient land. My husband has found it stirring, stunning, and serenely peaceful. Chuck Forsman, we thank you for its creation.”
—Customer review on Amazon, July 24, 2019
Read a review on The VVA Veteran by Michael Keating.
My Place
There is nothing unique about a unique Western town, so I will simply refer to Boulder as peculiar. It’s a college town and doesn’t seem like a Western town. A tax-supported greenbelt with miles of hiking trails and protected parkland surround it, in effect tying it to its stunning surroundings while isolating it from the surrounding culture. The view to the west is blocked by the rugged foothills, which rise majestically to the Continental Divide; but, looking east, one is greeted by the unbroken sweep of the Great Plains. Boulder is, however, tied to currents well beyond its greenbelt. It is a haven for Nobel scientists, Olympic athletes, start-ups, and Buddhists. Many Coloradans are ambivalent or hostile to Boulder because of its liberal politics and exclusivity. I grew up in a working-class Western culture, so I remain stubbornly tied to the larger culture.
Colorado can be loosely divided into three cultural/geographical areas commonly referred to as the Eastern Plains, a vast region of rolling dry grasslands with a sparse, agriculture-based population; the Front Range, where most of the state’s population is concentrated along the I-25 north/south corridor hugging the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains that includes the population centers of Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo; and, lastly, the Western Slope, which includes the rugged mountain, mesa, and canyon regions that break off from the Great Divide into the surrounding states and desert regions and includes Vail, Aspen, Grand Junction, Durango, and other scattered communities based on ranching, mining, tourism, and more. The central metropolitan area is often loosely referred to as the Denver/Boulder area. Boulder, however, is often regarded as an effete satellite, a fate shared by university towns elsewhere.
Boulder basks in an athletic, sun-drenched, outdoor culture, awash in dogs, bicycles, and German cars—and some bikes may be worth more than the cars. Its prosperity and location predispose the population now to homogeneity, being primarily white, educated, affluent, and they, like me, imported. A shadow population of Latino workers live here, and manage to find residence despite the expensive housing.
My wife, Kris Lewis, is an architect. We have lived in Boulder since I came to teach painting at the University of Colorado in 1971. Our dissimilar twin daughters, Chloe and Shannon, were born in 1987. Wary of a privileged learning environment, we enrolled them in a bilingual primary school, where they made rich friendships and became fully steeped in Latino culture. The “shadow community” emerged from the shadows for all of us. We found that looking deeper inside one’s community can be as enriching as looking beyond it.
Today, Shannon is an accomplished rock climber and teacher, and Chloe is a top-professional mountain bike racer. Kris and I bike and hike the local trails. All of us both resist and indulge in what our home place has made of us.
Copyright © 2013 Charles Forsman. All rights reserved.
© Photographs of Magpie in and around Boulder by Charles Forsman