The Drama Behind
Kien Nguyen's Frist-Time Sale

By Susan Flakes

The drama behind the writing – let alone the selling – of Kien Nguyen’s book THE UNWANTED to a publisher and to a major producer is like a film in itself. And a particularly dramatic film because at first Kien didn’t think that he wanted to write the book. Then, once the book was written, he didn’t think that he wanted to have it published, and having it made into a film was the furthest thing from his mind. But major and dynamic ‘characters’, some in the publishing and film world, came into his life and helped turn it all around for him.

The first was famed psychic Frank Andrews. It was 1991. Someone suggested to Kien that he have a session with Andrews. Kien was skeptical about all psychics, but his life was in shambles, he knew that he had to do something about the nightmares he was suffering from, and he couldn’t afford a therapist. Ever since Kien had arrived in America from South Vietnam in 1985, at the age of 18, the more he had tried to suppress those nightmares, the worse they had become.

When the Communists took over in 1975 he had been subjected to particularly brutal treatment because his mother had been wealthy and he and his brother were both Amerasians. Where else but at the offspring the Americans had left behind could the Vietnamese vent their rage at the soldiers who had bombed the North and abandoned the South. After unspeakable abuse, a failed attempt to escape by boat, and imprisonment in a work camp, Kien finally managed, with his family, to leave Vietnam through the United Nations’ Orderly Departure Program.

So determined was Kien not to relive his horrifying experiences even by speaking of them, he distanced himself from his mother, a tough but beautiful woman nicknamed in Vietnam the Dragon Lady. She wanted to recount the details of Vietnam with Kien so that he would never forget. This conflict between Kien and his mother is one of the ‘subplots’ that will return later in this drama about the selling of Kien’s story.

Back to the main plot. Psychic Frank Andrews immediately zeroed in not only on the moving story that Kien had bottled up inside, but also on the writer that Kien could become if he told that story. Kien resisted. Frank persisted. They bonded. Frank became Kien’s “adopted father” and helped Kien become what Kien thought that he wanted to be: a dentist. But to humor Frank, and to help himself heal, Kien started writing his memoirs into his computer. He found himself overwhelmed by all the pent up opinions, the hate and the anger that spewed out.

Another subplot develops. One of Frank's acquaintances is Fiona Eberts, more than thirty years the wife of high-powered, soft spoken film producer Jake Eberts (who had at least a hand in GANDHI, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, THE KILLING FIELDS, DRIVING MISS DAISY, FULL METAL JACKET, THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE, and many others).

Like Frank, Fiona has gotten to know and believe in Kien, and thinks that his story should be told to the world. But Fiona follows a strict guideline. She never interferes with or tries to influence her husband’s business. And so when Kien comes to lunch at the Eberts’, Kien has no idea that Jake is a big-deal producer. All he knows is that Jake must be important because he’s on his phone non-stop.

By now Kien has a very substantial first draft, but still has no intention of sharing it with anyone. He doesn’t want to become anybody’s “political poster boy.” It’s his personal story of endurance and hope in the face of abuse, starvation, and near-death.

Enter the second major character in the main plot of the drama behind the sale: dynamic manager of authors Peter Miller, president of PMA Literary and Film Management, Inc. Peter Miller is constantly on an aggressive and penetrating search not just for viable properties but for viable authors who have something to say in a way that it's never been said before (see the article on Peter Miller also in WBW).

In September 1999 Peter Miller tries to get Frank Andrews to write a book about his life and his renowned psychic abilities. Frank explains that he does what he does to help people, not to blow his horn, but he appreciates Peter’s insights and passions for discovering and developing talented writers. Frank wants Peter to consider taking on his “adopted son”, Kien Nguyen.

In a plot development that might seem too unbelievable in an actual film, too set-up, Kien, unaware that Frank is trying to interest Peter Miller in him, has the urge to begin to shape his first draft, for no reason that he can yet understand.

When, at Frank’s insistence, Kien meets with Peter Miller he’s as skeptical about agents as he once was about psychics. “If you’re out to cast a Hollywood agent in a movie,” says Kien, “that’s Peter.” Kien thought Peter was too aggressive, just interested in money, but he figured there was nothing to lose by playing along with him. Kien gave Peter what he had shaped, then about 100 pages, and Peter told him that if he thought that Kien had a story there, he’d call.

Peter called Kien at 8:30 the next morning. Early by New York standards and a testimony to how much Peter loved and respected those pages – and the writer. But Peter wanted to get Kien a ghostwriter. Kien refused. “It’s my story.
I’ll write it!”

Peter became true to his reputation, and then some, as a one hundred per cent supporter of the writer when that writer does indeed have a story to tell. He got Kien an editor.

Enter the next major character in the story, editor Michaela Hamilton. “An angel,” Kien says of her. “She told me, ‘I don’t want to help you write your book. I want to help you find your voice.’” Kicked out of the pages were all of the opinions, the hate, and the anger. Michaela helped Kien pare down to and connect with what he was really trying to do: to dramatize a message of hope, especially to the 50,000 Amerasians who have been so beaten down in Vietnam. An example of how beaten down: Kien was the only one to finish high school of the 6,000 Amerasians in his town because, thanks to his mother’s powerful emphasis on the importance of education, he was the only one who succeeded in enduring the daily ridicule and beatings at school.

Speaking of his mother, Khuon, at this point in the story Kien re-connects with her. The details about their life in Vietnam that he had once shunned he now begs her to recount, so that his book will be even better.

Like in any good film, though, just when our hero is so up, he hits what looks like an insurmountable obstacle. Peter has sent Kien’s polished proposal of about 120 pages to - and set him up for interviews with – three publishers. The first two aren’t yet interested. They haven’t even bothered to read the manuscript. Kien says to himself, “Maybe I’m meant to remain a dentist, not a writer. That’s OK. I am fortunate, I live in a country where I have options.”

Then he’s waiting for his interview with the third publisher, Little, Brown and Company. He’s feeling skeptical about all publishers.

The next main character in our drama, editor Judy Clain, enters consumed with excitement. Kien’s book has awakened her to the strength and hope that she now feels that she must instill in her own children. Kien has not written a message of hope just for his fellow Amerasians, but for us all.

After Peter accepted a pre-emptive bid and concluded a sale to Judy Clain, several other publishers phoned him saying they wanted to publish it.

The praise has been non-stop since the book was published last month, March 2001. They’re calling it “a suspenseful tale”, “compellingly told”, “a haunting memory of both nightmarish agony and redemptive self-discovery destined to be a literary classic”.

The ‘producer Jake Eberts’ subplot comes together with the main plot of the drama behind the selling of the movie rights when three copies of Kien’s manuscript from three different sources appear simultaneously on Jake’s desk. All three, none of them from his wife Fiona (she never interferes or influences no matter how badly she wants to) are recommending that Jake not ignore this ‘property’ that is told with such stark realism and poetic brilliance that it is already, even in book format, remarkably
visual.

Jake loves it, gets on the phone to Kien. “If I don’t buy it,” he says, “I’ll watch over it.” Like Peter Miller, Jake Eberts has an insight for taking on projects that are not just moneymakers, but provocative. At Peter Miller's prodding, Jake does buy the rights (under his company, Allied Filmmakers), and presently he is putting the production together. He is working fervently to secure a major writer or director and to maintain the integrity of the project all the way through.

For Kien, the project is in such good hands that he doesn’t care to be involved. When Fiona calls from Europe, Jake gets on the phone to give Kien an update – about the lunch he just had with Ang Lee, a potential director; his search for the right screenwriter; the idea of how the story can be made more accessible to an American audience organically by book ending with Kien’s remarkable relationship with Frank Andrews, with maybe an actor like Al Pacino playing Frank.

Kien could participate in the making of the film in any way that he would choose, but he’s chosen instead to focus on writing his next book. Little, Brown, a publishing company for which Kien has nothing but praise, liked THE UNWANTED and Kien so much that they bought his next two books before he’d even begun writing them. He’s just completed the first of those two books, THE TAPESTRIES, which Peter Miller says is even bigger and better than THE UNWANTED.

Speaking of Peter Miller, Kien has done a major reevaluation of his first impression of this “agent.” He calls Peter “a godsend”, a man of heart and soul. Literally, because Peter is out there giving heart and soul to a lot of fortunate writers.

Kien is surprised and amazed at how he’s being invited to speak in front of groups of writers and writing students. But he was pleased in particular at one piece of advice that popped out of his mouth: treat what you choose to write like your lover. Give it all you’ve got.

As for screenwriting, yes, he says he’s got some good ideas for a few screenplays that he’d like to write. And then he adds emphatically - “Comedies”.

Susan Flakes taps a multitude of experiences in all of her freelance writing. She was a Naval Officer, a head of a department at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, founder of the internationally acclaimed Experimental Theater Wing, founder and artistic director of theaters in Stockholm and New York.

While residing as a guest artist in the last residence of playwright August Strindberg, she wrote her first play, which garnered rave reviews and toured Scandinavia. Now residing in Los Angeles, she is writing a nonfiction book, inspired by the Saami people in Lapland, which is the basis of a documentary in the planning stages.

One of her plays, produced to rave reviews in Los Angeles, was a finalist for the National Playwrights Conference, the O’Neill Theatre Center, and for a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. One of her short plays won the Lamia Ink Contest and was performed at LaMama in New York. Two of her screenplays are in the hands of a top director and producer and could go to production in the near future.

Top of Page
Home

Moondance is produced annually by
Mermaid7seas Productions (www.mermaid7seas.com)
Copyright © Moondance International Film Festival, LLC
All Rights Reserved.