The Man from Saigon: A Novel

Written by Marti Leimbach

Narrated by Susan Ericksen

It's 1967, and Susan Gifford is one of the first female correspondents on assignment in Saigon. She is dedicated to her job and passionately in love with an American TV reporter. Son is a Vietnamese photographer anxious to get his work into the American press. Together they cover every aspect of the war, from combat missions to the workings of field hospitals. Then one November morning, narrowly escaping death during an ambush, Susan and Son find themselves the prisoners of three Vietcong soldiers who have been separated from their unit.

Now, under constant threat from American air strikes and helpless in the hands of the enemy, they face the daily hardships of the jungle together. As time passes, the bond between Susan and Son deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult for Son to harbor the secret that could have profound consequences for them both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781400186334

Marti Leimbach

Marti Leimbach was born in 1963 in Washington, DC. She has written several other novels, one of which, Dying Young, was turned into a major feature film in 1991 staring Julia Roberts. Marti now lives in the UK.

Reviews for The Man from Saigon

[paulco_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Different from other books about Viet Nam, this one was a bit difficult for me because of the first person writing on the part of the author, not a format I am comfortable with. It's an intimate portrayl of the war, no grand scale here. People have problems, die or are swept along by what they can't control.

[orangewords · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting novel. Leimbach's descriptions of Vietnam are quite moving, and very detailed. All of her characters are multi-layered and intriguing. Leimbach hides as much as she reveals, and that makes for a very interesting and very moving book. That being said, I will not be keeping this book as a permanent part of my library, though I would not discourage others from reading it.

[amusedbybooks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The story was interesting and different from other Vietnam books I've read, however few and far between those might be. Susan is a young woman who is a journalist sent from a woman's magizine to cover the war. I found this mildly far fetched but I wasn't alive then so what do I know. However, Glamour and Marie Claire don't have someone full time reporting from Afghanistan or Iraq on 'women's interests' in wartime they just do some op-ed's from time to time so maybe I'm not completely off base here. At any rate that's why Susan is there so just go with it. Susan was pretty easy for me to relate to which I liked. She didn't know what to expect and when she got to Saigon she was kind of overwhelmed at first which is a very honest portrayal I think. Growing up in America couldn't prepare you for that. She was thrown into all kinds of situations before being captured by the Viet Cong (I didn't just give anything away there that they don't tell you on the back of the book). She was doing pretty well with her writing and had even started a love affair with another man before all this went down in the jungle. Unfortunately for her the unthinkable happens and she is captured.You learn how strong Susan is and what the human body is able to endure. There is also some mystery and intrigue, while back in Saigon Susan's boyfriend is trying to figure out how to rescue her. Overall, while the story was told from a different standpoint than most Vietnam War novels, I do think that it was slow for me, and I found my mind wandering while reading it. It didn't grab me like I thought it would.

[larxol_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Marti Leimbach’s war novelThe Man from Saigon is set in the steamy and oppressive atmosphere of the Vietnam Way, specifically in 1967. She takes full advantage of the hindsight available forty years later to show the dissonance between the gritty realities of the war and the official blather that the American government (and many news sources) were delivering back home. Her story ends just before the Viet Cong launched the huge Tet Offensive across the country, which caused many Americans who had loyally supported the government’s policies to start questioning what they were hearing. The protagonist of this story is Susan, a woman reporter, and , yes, there were women reporters in Vietnam. Leimbach has done her homework with the memoirs and other records of women’s experiences in the theater of operations, and acknowledges drawing many incidents in the plot from them. But this is a novel, not a recounting of battles, and her story really explores how the war affects Susan’s relationship with two men. One is Marc, an intrepid and successful television reporter, with a wife back home. The other is Son, a Vietnamese photographer and translator with whom she works. Her connection to both men is profoundly changed by her capture by the North Vietnamese. This is a richly researched book – I didn’t spot a single anachronism, and I’m old enough to know. It’s full of sights and sounds and smells that feel true. It is a war novel, and there is horror and terror and stupidity, but never beyond the believable.

[eapalmer_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leimbach's writing summons the sights, sounds, and smells of Vietnam in an extraordinary way. The way she moves back and forth in time and place makes Son and Susan's time in the jungle interesting rather than tedious. She clearly shows the damage that war does to everyone it touches--the civilians, the combatants, the journalists, members of the medical world.

[freckles1987 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To be honest, I was prepared for disappointment after reading the other reviews of The Man from Saigon. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Leimbach effectively evokes the sweltering atmosphere, and the stretched-out terror of living in a country at war. There are enough summaries of this novel, so I will just provide some of my reactions. First and foremost, I was very impressed with the amount of research Leimbach did in the creation of this book. Her attention to realism shows a dedication both to her craft, and to the men and women who lived and worked in Vietnam.The narrative style drew me in, although I never much cared for Marc, the American reporter and love interest. The uncertain ending left me yearning for more, perhaps an answer to the enigma of Son. Susan I was ambivalent about, although the terror of her capture was very realistic and I could not help but feel terror for her. Mostly, the side characters of Locke; and the mysterious Son made the book for me. They were not overly simplified, but multifaceted (like real people). Likewise, the representation of war, medicine, and daily life in a war zone were minute and fascinating. In summary, the atmosphere and characterizations in the novel make the Man from Saigon an exciting, and sometimes heart-wrenching read.While this is not something I would have noticed if browsing at a store, I am immensely happy for reading it and will read more of Leimbach's fiction in the future.

[harvee_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A book that gives you the feeling of being there in the war with the female journalist. Susan Gifford. I am strongly reminded of another book printed after this one in 2010, The Lotus Eaters, which seems to have plot similarities to The Man from Saigon, which was printed the year before. Excellent writing, though I would have preferred more dialogue in this book, to break up the long stretches of reported speech, descriptions, and internal dialogue . I received this book as part of the Early Reviewers program.

[alphawoman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was surprised this book was so good. I shed tears at how she ended it. Female war correspondent in Vietnam. It was such a compelling story I told it to my husband over lunch and got choked up. Vietnam in the rearview mirror slowly fading from our collective memory. Atrocities committed, lies told to the American people, and an entire generation who said NO!Fantastic female protagonist.

[loafhunter13 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's 1967 and Susan Gifford is one of the first female correspondents in Saigon, dedicated to her job and passionately in love with an American TV reporter. Son is a Vietnamese photographer who accompanies her as they cover combat missions. On a November morning they escape death during an ambush but find themselves prisoners of three rogue Vietcong soldiers. Helpless in the hands of the enemy, they face the jungle, living always with the threat of being killed. But Son turns out to have a secret history that will one day separate Susan from her American lover. As they are held under terrifyingly harsh conditions, it becomes clear just how profound their relationship is and how important it has become to both of them.Leimbach pens an interesting, if not entirely tidy, tale of life, love, and loss during the Vietnam War. The war is undeniable but serves as a constant, tense background for the movements of the main characters. Those characters are nicely developed; their personalities jump off the page. Leimbach has a talent for words, and uses them to very positive effect in many cases. The strength of her fiction and her narrative comes from not only words, but the amount of research she conducted to write the book as evidenced in the acknowledgement section. The same touch with words is also one of the facets that holds the book back as at times it feels like Leimbach over-thinks a scenario, over-describes a scene. or over analyzes a moment. Her own ability and passion for the creative description can overwhelm the narratives in places. The narrative itself is not safe from this as the entire story tangent following Marc Davis feels unnecessary, used only as filler to keep the jungle passages tense and appealing. The ending is mysterious as well. One would not expect a clean conclusion nor should one expect lengthy reflections on the events of the book. The ending here is both interesting for its terseness and disappointing for its weak finish. The book is a solid effort, carried by Leimbach's writing skill, the rich yet horrific events of the Vietnam War, and solid research. Its inconstancies are trying at times but do not affect the reader's enjoyment of the book.

[isolablue · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leimbach gives us suspense, terror, fear, discomfort, revulsion, intrigue, romance, insight, emotion, and warfare with no Hollywood props. The Man from Saigon reads far more like pure literature than popular thriller. Its audience, therefore, will be those who prefer slower paced observations and internal thought. This is not a book for lovers of fast-paced, heart-beating, page turning, soon-to-be-turned-into-a-movie type of read. Leimbach's characters, their thoughts, actions, and story come to us as if in a dream. Her interesting sense of pacing the narrative is intriguingly designed, a bit slow, but very personal. The force behind the narrative comes through Susan Gifford, the female war correspondent, who is young, new to Vietnam, and - like all new reporters - out of her element. Although most of the internal thought within the book comes through Susan, the reader is often left feeling as though there must be more of her to know. She intrigues, but never quite allows the reader too close to her. On the other hand, the most mysteriously presented character, Hoang Van Son, is the more sharply drawn, the better presented, the one we feel we understand most at the end of the last page. There was a time in the 1980s and even through the early 1990s, when books about Vietnam seemed hard to read. Perhaps it was too soon, the war not far enough back in time. That started to change when authors decided to explore the war, its people, and the effects in a different way. Leimbach's book is one of those efforts, and a very good one at that. Although much of the novel is centered on Susan's arrival and adjustment to the country and her job of reporting, and there is the obligatory romance with an American television reporter, and a deep friendship with her Vietnamese photographer, it is not until her fate is in the hands of the Vietcong, that the story really becomes what it wants to be all along. Leimbach is an excellent writer, an obviously very good researcher, and has a keen sense for nuance and the story beneath the story. Any lover of fine literature will enjoy The Man from Saigon. Leimbach will be watched for what she will write next. It will feel right if she stays on her dreamy, internal side as that is her strength. Regularly portrayed characters, expected scenes, and every day life and relationships are not her strength. She excels when stirring emotions around a thinking brain and letting her characters walk those out.

[juli1357 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is quite simply the worst book I've read about Vietnam. The author has never been to Vietnam and clearly did very little research on the subject. The title is misleading because the man referred to is not from Saigon, something that is alluded to early on in the book. Readers expecting to learn anything about Saigon, or even Vietnam in general, will be sorely disappointed because most of the action takes place in the jungle, following the capture of American journalist Susan Gifford and her Vietnamese photographer/translator Son by three North Vietnamese soldiers. And with the exception of them occasionally coming across a deserted hamlet or learning that the way the Vietcong manage to avoid stepping on land mines is by leaving coded messages for each other (i.e. tying grass a certain way, leaving a broken branch on a path etc.), it might have been any jungle. To make matters worse, the story is told in third person narrative which has the effect of distancing the reader even further from a story that isn't terribly engaging to begin with. The book is touted as a love story, but it fails short even on that level. You could pick up pretty much any other book about Vietnam and end up feeling much more satisfied that you will if you choose to read this one. Enough said.

[afyfe_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Looking back on this book, I enjoyed it, however there were points in the middle that were hard to get through. The overall story was great and came together very well at the end. I really didn’t understand all the focus on the character Marc, I never really liked him and was very bored by his story. Anytime the author switched back to him I almost just wanted to skip ahead to the next time Susan and Son appeared. I also thought it was weird that he didn’t come back into the story with Susan at the end, so why put all that focus on him? I really enjoyed everything that happened with Susan and Son when they got captured and the development of their three captors. I also got a little confused at times whether they were in the present time or reflecting on something in the past. Again, I really enjoyed the current storyline but all the flashbacks tended to get boring. Lastly, I wasn’t a big fan of the fact that it was written in the third person, it didn’t seem to fit right. I’d recommend this book to someone interested in the Vietnam war and willing to trudge through some boring parts to find a very good overall storyline.

[nanajlove_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is an excellent learning opportunity as well as an involving read. Learning about the Vietnam war as well as vicariously experiencing how jarring and difficult it is to be a journalist in a war zone is a unique opportunity. The author has skillfully woven the complexities of the protagonist's relationships, her struggles for recognition and equality, and intrigue against the backdrop of a violent bloody war.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Vietnam War meant different things to different people because they cane to the war in very different ways. Some entered it, kicking and screaming, via the nerve-wracking military draft of the sixties, and a few joined up in order to avoid the prison time they deserved. Others, for reasons of their own, volunteered to join the fight. But, even then, common foot soldiers saw the war through eyes very different from those of the career officers who led them. Nurses, doctors and journalists had yet another Vietnam War experience - and, then, there were those rare female journalists who experienced something else altogether different.Marti Leimbach's latest novel, "The Man from Saigon," tells the story of one of those female reporters, Susan Gifford, a woman who came to Vietnam to write special interest stories for a women's magazine but could not resist the dangerous pull of going into the field with her fellow reporters, a decision she would often regret after it was too late to do anything about it. Susan's willingness to place herself in harm's way would eventually lead to her capture (along with Son, her Vietnamese photographer) by three North Vietnamese soldiers who would march her deep into the jungle in search of the unit from which they had become separated prior to stumbling upon Susan and Son."The Man from Saigon," though, is about more than the trauma associated with chaotic firefights and ambushes by enemy soldiers. It is about personal relationships and how those relationships are shaped and changed when the constant possibility of a brutal, and sudden, death hangs over one's head for months at a time. The novel explores the willingness of those who place themselves in that kind of situation to live all aspects of their lives on the edge. Needless to say, romance seldom plays much of a role in the practical relationships that often develop inside a war zone.Susan finds herself involved with two very different men: a physical relationship with a married network news broadcaster who has been in-country for some twenty-nine months and a friendly relationship with the Vietnamese photographer who shares her tiny apartment in Saigon between their trips into the field to cover the war. In a way, she loves both of them, and neither of them - but together they give her the emotional support she needs to survive her Vietnam experience.Marti Leimbach offers an insightful look at the whole Vietnam War experience, but with a slightly different twist to it. As she puts it in the novel, "It feels to her (Susan) that the universal theme of this country is departure and loss. Everyone is always in the process of leaving. Everyone is dying or disappearing or going away or being sent home. You never got used to it."Those readers who have read, or plan to read, the moving new Vietnam War novel, "Matterhorn," by Karl Marlantes will find that "The Man from Saigon" is a nice companion piece in the way it looks at the war from a completely different point-of-view, this time from the viewpoint of those paid to be there to tell the rest of us what was really happening there. Rated at: 4.0

[oldman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Man from Saigon by Marti Leimbach is anything but a romantic story in an exotic place. The most telling words came at the end where war is described as destroying everything - life, love and relationships. To return to the beginning, Susan Gifford is a journalist working for a women’s magazine. Suddenly, for little reason, she is sent to Viet Nam shortly before the Tet offensive began, the beginning of the end of US involvement in Viet Nam. Her task was to seek out stories of particular interest to women or which had a female component to the story. Being a journalist in a war zone, she took risks not common to her previous experience. She traveled with convoys, witnessed combat and saw results combat. She developed special relationships. One was with Marc, a cynical, hard-bitten journalist who had been in Viet Nam for more than two years. They met in a bunker under mortar attack. Throughout the book their relationship grows, physically and emotionally, but becomes a casualty of the war with later events. Another relationship was with Son, a photographer who attached himself to her both professionally and personally. This relationship was emotional, without the physical interaction. The disrupting event occurs with her and Son’s capture by Viet Cong. Traveling through the jungle to find their unit, the three captors take the woman and photographer for a week or more through the maze of vines, trees and overwhelming heat. The story is from the woman’s view of how fearful she was, how dirty she was and yet how dependent she was upon her captors. She also sees Son differently who, by language and possibly also by political persuasion, is a Viet Cong. Ultimately though, she bonds with Son, almost a love bond and comes to view her captors as not as savage as she had been lead to see them. Marc is lost without her and wanders the delta region awaiting her return. However he isn’t only waiting, his beautiful wife appears, pregnant, to convince him to return home. All is not well in this relationship either, as her pregnancy is not by her husband, Marc, but by another man. Another relationship destroyed by the war. He returns to the US, more cynical than ever and not capable of being a reporter in the peaceful America. When Susan is found, after a fire fight in which her captors are all killed, just as she is beginning to see them as intelligent, swaggering, young men. She saves Son, but that relationship founders with their separation after being rescued. He tells her to leave the country “before Tet”, who returns to Hanoi. The story ends with her not knowing exactly what relationship exists or existed with Son, as he is a very clever man.This was an enjoyable read, though not ending at all happily, because it showed the reality of war and the damage it causes. The fear, anger, violent death and distorted relationships experienced by everyone within the grasp of war change people for all their lives. Though never a prisoner myself the description of Susan’s days as a prisoner and her ultimate feelings about her captors – looking for the “good side” of them, though they carried guns and knives all the time – left me wondering that her response to her situation was not abnormal. Marc’s response to his time in country was to become more cynical and depressed, drowning his feelings in alcohol and drugs. I became caught up in the process of the war, the alternating scenes of her captivity and, in a way, his captivity too. The writing was lucid and flowed well. I give this book 3 and one-half stars.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an interesting read for me due, in part, to the fact I was reading The Making of a Quagmire by David Halberstam at the same time. Leimbach's descriptions of Vietnam mirrored Halberstam's almost perfectly. The rainy, muggy climate, the poverty stricken communities, the brash (trying-to-be-brave) military presence, but above all, the reporters trying to capture the atrocities of politics and war while remaining mentally sound and physically safe. Of course, Leimbach's story is a bit less intense with the addition of an adulterous romance threaded through the bomb blasts and sniper attacks. Susan Gifford is a green reporter trying her hand at covering the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. When she is taken captive by the Vietnam Communists, the Vietcong, along with her photographer, Hoang Van Son, the plot thickens. Susan is suddenly confronted with a profound and deep relationship that was originally a professional partnership forged out of necessity.

[timbazzett · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was just too darn long, by at least a hundred pages. That said, I do think Marti Leimbach is a wonderful writer. Her characters are well drawn and fully fleshed out, particularly the two Americans, Susan Gifford and Marc Davis. The character who remains something of an enigma is the title character, Son, who is, presumably, a North Vietnamese spy working under cover as a press photographer. I'm not sure he really works as a character, simply because Leimbach is unable to ever get inside his skin and mind the way she does with her American journalists. Because of this, the ending lacks resolution. But the biggest problem with the book was its length. Perhaps one of Leimbach's biggest strengths in this book is the way she is able to evoke an atmosphere, a setting, an ambience. She makes you feel the ooze, hear the noise, smell the smells and the stench of both the jungle and the teeming streets of Saigon and the other Vietnam locales visited in the story. It is just about as real as it gets. The trouble is she keeps on doing this to death until you just want to scream, "OKAY! I GET IT! GET ON WITH THE STORY ALREADY!" The story itself is pretty straightforward. The girl reporter gets captured by the Vietcong and endures untold (well, actually told and toLD and TOLD) hardships, but is kinda looked after by Son, who is captured with her and who, she begins to realize, is not who she thought he was. The boy reporter (who is married) worries about her and tries to search for her, feeling vaguely guilty about his pregnant wife back in the states. And the wife situation is worked out in just a bit too pat a manner, if you ask me - a deus ex machina that simply isn't very believable. I'm not sure I could spoil this book, because there's not much to spoil. I recognized a good writer in Leimbach, but I was constantly frustrated by the way the plot dragged and the way the atmosphere was simply done to death. The storyline was just too simple and too thin to sustain itself for over 300 pages. A perceptive editor should have seen this. Maybe this story was just not right for Leimbach. I still think I might take a look at her previous novel, Daniel Isn't Talking. I'll bet it's a lot better than this one.

[jgoto_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading Marti Leimbach’s new book, The Man from Saigon. Set during the Vietnam War, the story follows Susan Gifford, a war correspondent. Susan is the lover of Marc Davies, a married American TV reporter, and the partner of a Vietnamese news photographer, Hoang Van Son. While reporting on a mission in the jungle, Susan and Son become lost and are captured by the Vietcong.Leimbach’s descriptions of their trek through the jungle are vivid and gripping. Moving back and forth between Susan’s memories and her situation as a hungry, tired prisoner, Leimbach is also able to capture the seedy quality of Saigon and the horror of the refugee camps. Like her other books, The Man from Saigon is a love story. Susan’s emotions waver between her seemingly hopeless affair with Marc in Saigon and her relationship with Son, which turns out to be much more complicated than she had ever imagined.Although both were very engaging, I liked The Man from Saigon better than Leimbach’s Daniel Isn’t Talking. I think the reason for this is the fact that the characters in the later book are more complex and the ending isn’t as tidy.

[tututhefirst_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not really sure how to review this book. It's a novel, purportedly a love story? It's set in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam war and is written by an author who has never been to vietnam, even after the war. She indicates that all her setting, and resources are others' writings about their experiences. I guess for fiction it's ok, but I couldn't buy the premise, and I felt she took a story that could have been written in 150-200 pages, and stretched it to 300. I found my eyes glazing over often. TThe story is about the experiences of a female reporter who is sent to Vietnam to produce women's interest stories. Having read non-fiction books by several of the actual female reporters who did go to Vietnam, I had a hard time believing or relating to this one.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thanks, LT ER!The Man From Saigon is a work of historical fiction, set in 1967 during the Vietnam War just prior to the Tet Offensive. Susan Gifford is a reporter who writes for a woman's magazine and is sent to Saigon to write about things of interest to women. She realizes, however, that the real action is not in Saigon, but out in the field, and off she goes. On her first foray in country, she meets Marc, another reporter, with whom she eventually falls in love. She also takes with her on her periodic jaunts into the jungle a Vietnamese reporter named Son. It is on one trip to do a story on a refugee camp in the Delta that the soldiers with whom she is traveling are ambushed. She and Son are soon separated from the protection of the Army, but are quickly taken prisoner by three North Vietnamese soldiers looking for their own unit. Of course, this brief summary doesn't even begin to cover this story, but I don't want to give away the show for others who may wish to read the book. What I liked most about this book is how the author is able to zoom in on some of the inherent ambiguities and contradictions of war, and of those caught up in it, at least the slice of it which she reveals here. As an example, the "truth" that was coming out of Vietnam from reporters was often suppressed, filtered or changed, as we know now, and as the author shows so well, and depended heavily on what those in charge of the war wanted everyone to know back home. Marc and his cameraman Locke ran into this censorship and official US doublespeak issue several times throughout the story. The author also touches on the treatment of the native Vietnamese who were evacuated by the Army from their homes, whom the army called "victims of the Vietcong." (181) People in the camps had seen their houses torched, their food supplies ruined, normal life disrupted, all by the US Army and the ARVN forces when there wasn't even a battle going on. Then there's the moral ambiguity of it all, exemplified especially in the case of the main character, Susan, who comes to understand what's really happening while she's out there in the jungle and has time to reflect on her time and experiences in Vietnam, and perhaps even in Son to some extent (but, well, there's fruit for discussion). There are more examples as well. The Man From Saigon is overall, a good reading experience. The characters, for the most part, were well drawn, and the sense of place was so realistically portrayed that you could almost feel the intense heat from the time to time. However, I thought the author overdid it in terms of Susan's day-to-day slog through the jungle, the progress of her foot injuries, and the abundance of detail about the rats and insects that were cooked and eaten while she was a prisoner. At times the plotline moved very slowly. Had the story been a little bit tighter, it would have been excellent. But I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in reading about Vietnam, or about women's roles in Vietnam during the war. Ms. Leimbach has done a great deal of research here, and it's paid off.

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Leimbach's writing summons the sights, sounds, and smells of Vietnam in an extraordinary way. The way she moves back and forth in time and place makes Son and Susan's time in the jungle interesting rather than tedious. She clearly shows the damage that war does to everyone it touches--the civilians, the combatants, the journalists, members of the medical world.

[ranson_larry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Man from Saigon was a very good read. The author did a fantastic job of letting the reader understand what was going on inside the character's mind. The details of what was happening were so vivid, it almost makes you feel like you were witnessing the events first hand, although there were times when I thought there were so many details that it began to slow down the story.