Nobody's Child: A Woman's Abusive Past and the Inspiring Dream That Led Her to Rescue the Street Children of Saigon

Despite the subtitle, much of the book deals with Noble's life before Vietnam. Born in Dublin in 1944, she endured a childhood marred by her father's alcoholism, her mother's illnesses and abject poverty. After her mother's death, she ended up in a school for incorrigible girls in Galway. Returning to Dublin at age 16, she was gang-raped and bore a son, whom she turned over for adoption. After immigrating to England, Noble married an abusive Greek man and had three children by him. She spent time in mental institutions and eventually remarried. In 1971, she dreamed of going to Vietnam to work with street children, and in 1989, that dream came true as she journeyed to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) to work with orphans. Overcoming official obstructions through sheer persistence, she founded a children's center and now works with the Vietnamese government on other projects. Along with freelancer Coram, Noble has written a painfully frank and at times riveting autobiography. (Jan.)