Critical Praise

"Powerful," "compelling," "heartbreaking" and "a gripping story of self-doubt and self-discovery."  Click here for the full review.

—Publishers Weekly

"Passionate and unflinchingly honest, this is a fascinating memoir that explores the tangled connections between Graham Greene's fictional version of wartime Indochina and the real people there whose actions have haunted the author for most of her life.

"Danielle Flood is the child of an affair so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene's novel, THE QUIET AMERICAN, that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, 'I am a sequel he never wrote.'"

—Michael Shelden, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Graham Greene expert, Indiana State professor and biographer of Greene, Orwell, Churchill and Twain, and Melville

The similarities in THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER between Flood’s parents’ lives and the plot of Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN “are tantalizingly close, far too close to be coincidental; as Flood writes in the Prologue: ‘I came from a love triangle much like the one Greene describes in his novel. I am the sequel he never wrote.’

“…As sequels go, Danielle Flood’s life story could easily be a Graham Greene novel, full of dark twists and turns, betrayals, heartbreak and the saddest of all forms of unrequited love…

“…moving and at times imbued with humour…the tension is all too believable, but so is the joy…forgiveness and healing are at the heart of the story and the author’s ability to forgive is almost as powerful as the complex plot itself.” Click here to read the full review.

—The Catholic World Report

"Holy Moly, Mother of God. Ferociously honest and gorgeously written, Flood's memoir is a fiercely tragic story of her search for her real father, her knotted relationship with her complicated mother -- and her hard-won understanding of herself. About memory, love, loss and time, Flood's engrossing debut shines like mica and is as polished as platinum."

—Caroline Leavitt, the New York Times bestselling author of CRUEL BEAUTIFUL WORLD

"...a compelling, poetic account of self-doubt, self-discovery and the power of love." Click here to read the full review.

—Fordham Magazine

"When I was 13 or so, the Vietnam War in full flower, reading Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN let me appreciate fiction in a whole new way. Years later, Danielle Flood's riveting memoir-cum-mystery-story has let me appreciate Greene and his novel --- and the intersections of fiction and nonfiction --- in new ways. Such a story! And so beautifully told."

—Kurt Andersen, novelist, host of the public radio show "Studio 360"

"Every once in a while a memoir will appear that has the power to stop us dead.... This book relates the triumph of the indomitable human spirit in the most trying of life's circumstances..."

—Jo Manning, biographer and novelist

"Extraordinary and spectacular...a story that connect powerfully and poignantly with most of us."

—David Lawrence, Jr., international child advocate and former publisher of The Miami Herald

"...a work that will outlive us all: compelling, acutely honest and profoundly moving, without being whiny or cruel. That's rare."

—Joe McGinniss, author of THE SELLING OF THE PRESIDENT 1968 and 10 other books

"THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER is the true story of an exceptional woman. It takes the reader on an amazing journey. Exotic, mysterious, exciting and romantic. Bravo Danielle Flood. It's a classic."

—Eliott Gould, Oscar-nominated actor and veteran of more than 150 movies and television shows

"In Danielle Flood's clear-eyed memoir of her early life with her exquisitely beautiful and deeply troubled mother, this truth echoes: the fact that a child could survive such emotional devastation and cruelty is a testament to her resilience and her valiant spirit."

—Leslie Daniels, author of CLEANING NABOKOV'S HOUSE

Danielle Flood is "the daughter of a complex (woefully inadequate in this case) French/Vietnamese woman who was part of a wartime love triangle that inspired the one in Graham Greene's novel, THE QUIET AMERICAN. While the Greene connection may have lured me in, it was Flood's compelling 'sequel' that kept me riveted as she chronicled her often harrowing childhood, an intensive search for her real father and finally the unraveling of impossibly fine threads woven between her parents' lives and Greene's fiction. Journalist and storyteller are in perfect sync in these pages."

—Robert Gray, Fresh Eyes Now, Shelf-Awareness