Kennebunk author reveals the secret life of a Romanian refugee in Maine in 'Red Hands'

KENNEBUNK, Maine — According to author, editor and publisher Colin Sargent, the “cool thing about Maine is, you never know who’ll wind up here.”

Sargent knows this from experience. One day, in 1994, he was introduced to a woman named Iordana and her young son, Dani. They had fled from their home country five years earlier and brought with them a fascinating and fraught personal history, lived against the backdrop of the global current events of the day.

Sargent didn’t know it at the time, but close to 30 years later, he would be the one to tell Iordana’s story with his new book “Red Hands,” published on Valentine’s Day in 2023.

In 1989, a revolution in Bucharest resulted in the public execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife. Following the execution, anyone who had the Ceausescu name was in danger of the same fate.

Iordana had the name. She was the dictator’s daughter-in-law; she had married his son, Valentin.

With the help of a friend, world-famous racecar driver Catalin Tutunaru, Iordana and her son were able to flee Bucharest. They spent their first few years in Israel, and at one point made their way to America, all the while living under assumed names that hid their secrets.

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Colin Sargent keeps promise to share Iordana's story

Sargent, the founder, editor and publisher of Portland Monthly, had interviewed Tutunaru once, and the two had struck up a comfortable friendship. It was Tutunaru who introduced Sargent to the globe-traveling mother and son.

Both Iordana and Dani lived in Old Orchard Beach through much of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, before each eventually returned to Romania, where the dust had long since settled on the conflicts they fled. During this time, they lived under new names that sounded all-American.

During this time, Sargent knew Iordana’s secret and kept it all the years he knew her and her son. Iordana was so intent on maintaining her secrecy and privacy that, when asked for a picture of her for this article, Sargent could only smile and say she never let one be taken of her.

Sargent took time to get to know Iordana, whom he came to view as a woman of enormous courage, intelligence, humor, and self-awareness.

Determined to write her story, Sargent interviewed Iordana for hundreds of hours and read many news articles about the conflict from which she had escaped. So intent was he to capture Iordana’s life, Sargent even watched her favorite movies – she loved the French New Wave Cinema – and listened to the music she loved.

Iordana had one stipulation: like the late President Gerald Ford told one of his biographers, Thomas DeFrank, she essentially told Sargent, “Write it when I’m gone.”

And that he did. Following his daily regimen of writing for one hour every morning, with coffee to fuel his talents, Sargent worked on “Red Hands,” telling Iordana’s tale in her voice. When she died in 2017, Sargent kept writing and eventually embarked on the path to publication.

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'Red Hands,' an 'excruciating' story to tell

A press release for “RedHands” describes Sargent’s book as a “true-life tale that spins readers into the pleasures, excesses and horrors of late 20th-century Europe” and follows Iordana as “she falls in love with, marries and becomes estranged from, the Romanian dictator’s son.”

“It’s fitting that the book came out on Valentine’s Day, as that was Iordana’s husband’s name: Valentin,” Sargent said one recent morning, as he sat comfortably in an Adirondack chair in front of his home, in full view of Gooch’s Beach and the Atlantic Ocean.

Sargent said Iordana found the telling of her own story “excruciating.”

“She feels shame as she recounts the speedboats, designer wardrobes, exclusive access to Western culture via television and a private home theatre, and the mansions and gardens with staff enough to have a caretaker for her pet lamb,” Sargent said in the news release.

Sargent said Iordana came to see herself fully, overcoming the natural human tendency to want to overlook one’s own flaws and actions that might be part of the world’s problems. With bravery and candor, Iordana faced herself and her role in the elitism that hurt the people of her native land, and saw herself clearly.

The material excess of the life Iordana led in Bucharest came at a cost, according to Sargent. Ceausescu mismanaged Romania’s money and plunged the country into debt and chaos. Babies were taken from their parents and brought to farms for education and work. Many citizens did not survive the upheaval. Those who did plotted to storm Bucharest.

During such unrest, Iordana’s marriage to Valentin deteriorated. When citizens toppled Ceausescu, Iordana and Dani needed to find their ways to safety and survival.

When Iordana returned to Bucharest many years later, she learned that Valentin, whom she still loved, had remarried. She remained in Bucharest, nonetheless, to stay near him, according to Sargent.

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Why the book is called 'Red Hands'?

Sargent said the book’s title has two meanings. “Red,” of course, is the color once associated with communism, and “red-handed” refers to being caught in the wrong and being held accountable. In acknowledging her own role in the problems and strife that her homeland experienced in the 1980s, Iordana had, in a sense, caught herself red-handed, according to Sargent.

In addition to being an author and magazine editor and publisher, Sargent also is a poet and a playwright. “Red Hands” is his third book, following his two earlier ones, “The Boston Castrato” and “Museum of Human Beings.”

“Red Hands” is available online at Amazon and at bookstores throughout the state. Sargent expressed hopes that people would seek out his book at their local store.

“I love Maine bookstores,” he said.

With “Red Hands,” Sargent has delved into such universal themes as love, family, freedom, coming to terms with oneself ... and more.

“This story is about all of us,” Sargent said. “We’re all susceptible to falling under the spell of a cult of personality.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: 'Red Hands' reveals the secret life of a Romanian refugee in Maine