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Design Category
Book design, 1999
Design firm
Houghton Mifflin Company (New York, New York)
Collection
(2000) 50 Books/50 Covers of 1999
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This novel takes place in Vietnam during the early 1960s before U.S. military involvement. The jacket needed to convey that colonial period, as well as appeal to women. I tried to convey the steamy heat of Vietnam through color, and the cover’s graduated bands and shadows evoke a time of ceiling fans and louvered blinds. I also wanted to show that the “Dangerous Friend” in question was a westerner—not an Asian—by the panama hat, which plays a role in the book.