The premise of this novel sounded right up my alley, but the writing style felt too stiff and disjointed for me.

Parties and receptions are where things get done in Saigon. So Tricia, a U.S. Navy intelligence lawyer’s wife, discovers when she meets beautiful and confident Charlene and her quiet eight-year-old daughter, Rainey, eager to show Tricia her new Barbie doll. A situation arises at the party, whereby Charlene suggests they sell Barbies dressed in the Vietnamese áo-dài garment, to American wives for profit. Recognizing an easy mark and deftly posing the idea as Tricia’s, Charlene pulls the unsuspecting young wife into her cabal of fundraising, charity work, and participation in black-market transactions.

Absolution is a letter filled with Tricia’s reminiscences of 1963 in Saigon, written in her old age. The reason is initially not clear, and this sense of foreshadowing runs through the novel. Tricia describes Charlene as bossy, self-assured, a schemer who pushes people around, her altruism tinged with an egomaniacal potency, even as she tenderly nurses a napalm-burned child, visits a leprosarium, or mothers Tricia through her worst moments.

McDermott juxtaposes the deferential Vietnamese women against the privileged American wives, helpmeets there to advance husbands’ “illustrious careers” in an era when men felt no obligation to share anything with their spouse. Nostalgia for “an antique past” when men held doors, gave up their seats, and stood when women entered the room permeates the narrative, whilst asking the reader to grasp how it was for the wives ‘back then’. The novel is vividly era-relevant―pale-blue elaborately-folded airmail letters, bouffant styles with jaunty flips, shirtwaisters, reinforced-toed-and-heeled stockings. Saigon’s frenzied pace and heat are visceral.

McDermott isn’t shy about the political and corporate machinations which took the U.S. to Vietnam, lest we should forget that the so-called altruistic intent became a killing ground for young American servicemen. An exceptional novel about nuanced relationships between women and the subtleties of power, illuminating an unusual understanding of Vietnam and its aftermath.

I was a child in the 1960’s so I remember well the Vietnam war, Jack Kennedy as our beloved Catholic president and the joy of owning my own treasured Barbie doll with her black and white striped bathing suit. All of these things are part of the book, Absolution, and Alice McDermott has totally captured the essence of that time.
This story starts off with the life of a young newlywed woman, Trisha, as she begins her married life living in Saigon where her husband’s job takes them. She develops a friendship with another more experienced, outgoing and definitely assertive young woman, Charlene whose husband is an officer stationed there. Tricia also forms a strong bond with Charlene’s young daughter who loves playing with Barbie.
The second Half of the book is a retrospective reflection from an elderly Trisha as she remembers her early married years. She also gets to reconnect with Charlene’s daughter, who has a different perspective of those years in Saigon as a child. Together they share their memories and reflect on the powerful influence Charleen had on both of them.
This was a lovely nostalgic story that dives into those very unsettling times of the Vietnam war. It is also a life reflection that I find myself doing more and more these days. I am not sure why the book is called Absolution. I do not feel any of the characters need to apologize for the lives they led. Perhaps it is asking for absolution for our country’s involvement in the war? I am not sure, but I personally found the book to be very moving as well as an interesting and thoughtful story.

Has all the elements of an Alice McDermott novel -- gentleness, understatement, gorgeous writing, the detailed and nuanced exploration of family relationships -- in the surprising, non-McDermott setting of JFK-era Saigon. I couldn't put it down.

Alice McDermott easily navigates the varieties of human behavior, each book shining a light on just a slice. In 'Absolution,' McDermott crafts a character-driven narrative that delves into the moral obligations and ethical dilemmas faced by individuals in the period leading up to the Vietnam War. Through Tricia's journey and those around her, the novel compellingly portrays the silent struggles of an era and underscores the power of forgiveness, both from a religious perspective and as a means of self-acceptance. Alice McDermott's 'Absolution' is a thought-provoking and beautifully written exploration of the intricate web of secrets, sacrifice, and redemption that defined an era and continues to resonate today.

Tricia and Charlene are two young wives living in Saigon with their consultant husbands at the beginning of the Vietnam war. The story is told by Tricia to Charlene’s daughter years later with small part of the book narrated by Rainey, the daughter in response. Tricia speaks of being a young, naive wife who is taught to be a “helpmate” but quickly becomes involved (railroaded) into Charlene’s charitable, although sometimes dubious endeavors. Concurrently, Tricia is suffering with infertility issues and struggling to learn her role.
I do enjoy literary fiction and found this book to be well written. I was unaware that there were American families living and working in Vietnam during this time and the author gave us a glimpse into their lifestyles. I enjoyed the way Tricia “found her way” with Charlene’s help and in spite of her husband’s dominance. I wasn’t sure about Charlene but couldn’t help to like and respect her as we learned more about her, especially through her daughter and her colleague, Dom. The friendship between Rainey and Dom many years later was a nice addition to the story. The book format was a little confusing for me with the unannounced switch to Rainey’s story then back to Tricia and I was uncertain who each narrator was addressing at first. And I really would have liked to know more about Charlene. But overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to readers of literary fiction.
#NetGalley #FarrarStrausandGiroux

In 1963 Saigon, before the full fledged American involvement in Vietnam, two wives of husbands working in Saigon meet and develop a friendship of sorts. Tricia, a young, socially awkward woman from Yonkers is married to an engineer working with the US Navy. Charlene, mother of three, is socially aware, and hellbent on relieving some of the misery she sees around her with charitable gifts of toys, food, and clothing. Tricia’s life’s sadness is that she desperately wants to have a child but experiences multiple miscarriages. She strikes up a relationship with Charlene’s daughter, Rainey, whose Barbie doll becomes the inspiration for one of Charlene’s schemes to raise money for her gifts. The story is told in retrospective, from two POVs, that of the elderly Tricia and the middle aged Rainey via correspondence between the two.

This is a beautifully written, observant story that is both compelling and disturbing. Here is the life of women in the early 1960s when a wife’s role was to be a “help meet” for her husband. I loved how Tricia’s memories point out some of the absurdities of a woman’s life in those days.

Here also are the provocative thoughts and actions of America’s presence and role in Vietnam in that era as well as the plight of the Vietnamese citizens destined to be house workers for the Americans and living in poverty under the threat and fear of attacks. Who can forget that devastating photo of the young girl burned by napalm? Tricia certainly can’t.

The characterizations are strong and there is an evocative sense of time and place. As a memoir, this postulates that there is “no such thing as a life without regret”; how do we find release or absolution from the consequences of those regrets?

The more I think about this book, the better I like it.

4.5 So well done!

We begin in the story following the life of newlywed Tricia as she follows her husband to Saigon in 1963. She falls into the expat society and is embraced by Charlene, a strong willed, outgoing, mother of three.

The story continues to return to Charlene as the second POV is her daughter, years in the future telling of her mother and her time in Saigon.

The characters in this book felt so palpable and real. Very well developed. Not a lot happened but enough to keep the plot moving, with telling of hardship and the inner thoughts of these women. Rarely do we understand what those around us are really thinking and this almost felt voyeuristic as we saw some really personal and hard things that Tricia dealt with.

An easy one for me to recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the complimentary e-copy of this book.

This novel focuses on two women and the time they spent in Saigon in 1963 at the dawn of the Vietnam War. The young, shy, and insecure Patricia is newly married to Peter, “a civilian advisor.” She desperately wants a family but in the meantime is focused on being a helpmeet for her husband. Charlene is her foil: a mother of three and a confident, take-charge dynamo, she manipulates Patricia into helping with her many charity projects which prove to be well-meaning but misguided.

Patricia is exactly the type of wife society expected at that time. She is loyal and dutiful, focused on catering to Peter’s needs. Though educated, she does little of consequence: writing letters, shopping, attending lectures and cocktail parties, taking afternoon naps, and making herself pretty for her husband. Certainly the verb obey was part of her marriage vows; Charlene points out that Patricia won’t go to church without her husband’s permission. She asks few questions and, in fact, doesn’t even know exactly what Peter’s job is.

What stands out about Patricia is her naivety and trust in her husband. She encounters a young girl in agony with burns, but only years later makes the connection between her odd burns and the use of napalm. There’s a very revealing comment she makes at one point, talking both about her Catholic faith and American support for a Catholic regime in Vietnam: “our sense that we were a part of the one true faith was pretty solid in those days. Or maybe I should say that mine was solid because I so trusted my husband to be right.” Of course, she is not the only naïve one: “Whatever mention these women made of the days they’d all spent as dependents in Vietnam was usually of the little did we know sort.”

Charlene, on the other hand, is the spunky rebel. Obviously intelligent and ambitious but with no career into which she could channel her energy, she devotes herself to helping the Vietnamese: she raises money to distribute gifts to hospitals and even visits a leper colony. Patricia thinks that the term “’white savior’” is an apt description of Charlene. She wants to do something “’to stand against that very little evil – that impulse to turn away.’” The problem is that Charlene’s altruistic ventures are not well thought out. She just plows ahead without giving consideration to what the people really need or want. Certainly, she never asks.

Her altruism is suspect. The reader will remember what Patricia is told by a friend’s aunt: “’self-sacrifice is never really selfless. It’s often quite selfish.’” So it’s logical to wonder whether Charlene is doing good deeds to really help people or to help herself. Is she trying to repair the world or mend herself? Certainly, her ego and status get a boost from her acts. Because of her position and lifestyle, certainly a contrast to that of the Vietnamese, does she feel an obligation to help or is she trying to assuage some sense of guilt? Her polar opposite is Dominic, especially when the reader learns about his son Jamie.

She has no difficulty using people for her schemes; for instance, she sees a maid’s skills as a seamstress and immediately coerces her into sewing áo dái, Vietnamese tunics, to dress Barbies. The maid, whose name is Ly but Charlene always calls Lily, is never asked what she thinks of this idea of Saigon Barbies or if she wants to help. And Charlene’s plan to encourage Americans to adopt Vietnamese children is as morally questionable as Canada’s Sixties Scoop involving Indigenous children.

Patricia does experience some personal growth. At the end of her sojourn in Saigon, she expresses anger at “everyone in my life who had considered my opinions inconsequential, who had lied to me or ignored me or manipulated me for what they considered my own benefit . . . those who’d set out to do good on my behalf.” Peter and Charlene both treat her this way so her anger is justified, but how much more so is that of the Vietnamese people, the recipients of Charlene and Patricia’s “efforts at inconsequential good”?

Of course, Charlene’s misguided altruism parallels the mistakes of American involvement in Vietnam. Convinced she knows what is good for the people, she just moves ahead without consultation, just as the American government, seeing Vietnam’s reunification as a strategic and economic disaster, justified its presence with anti-communism rhetoric and downplayed protests, like the self-immolation of Buddhist monks, against the increasingly unpopular Diệm regime. And until the end, Patricia accepts Charlene’s explanations, just as Americans accepted their government’s.

This is a complex novel which offers much for the reader to ponder: the conflict between societal expectations and personal desires, the meaning of genuine altruism, the unintended consequences of good intentions, and a country’s need for absolution for past actions. It would not suffer from a second reading. My only hesitation is that I found reading it a struggle at times; the pace is slow and parts are repetitious.

Review of Alice McDermott - Absolution
5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am so excited to share this review today, as Absolution by Alice McDermott arrives on bookshelves. I have been fortunate to read several wonderful books so far this year, but I think this one will remain in my top 5 for 2023. From the first chapter to the last, I was enveloped by the sights and settings, the senses and emotions explored.

McDermott transported me back to 1963, and showed me what life was like for American expat women in Saigon then. Deftly portraying life as a trailing spouse, she gives a glimpse of an era of history not often seen from the female perspective, all the while begging her reader to question the true meaning of selflessness and humanitarianism at every level. I truly feel Absolution has left a note on my heart, and cannot wait for McDermott to craft her next novel.

I would like to thank NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Absolution by Alice McDermott is my first novel by this author. McDermott has a gift for giving the reader a real sense of time and place as she describes her characters. This book set in Vietnam in the early 1960s really immerses the reader in the details of what it meant to be a woman at that time and especially what it meant to be a woman who was a helpmate for her spouse. The details ring true and were my favorite parts of the book.

I appreciated how the author danced from the current to the past without it being an intrusive technique, my only quibble was that the ending felt abrupt (so much so that I kept pushing to change my page on the Kindle).

Ultimately I enjoyed this book and appreciated the writing of the author. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of Absolution in exchange for an honest review. Absolution is available today.

4.5 rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is an epistolary novel, with the letters exchanged years after the main action. They are between an older woman who befriended the mother of a younger. The younger woman initiated contact, asking questions about that time.

Whenever Alice McDermott releases a new book, it's cause for celebration. She has a superpower: inserting the reader into the story so deeply that the sights, sounds, smells, characters- everything- is real. This book is no exception. Early 60s Saigon, with the smell of leaded gasoline, the feeling of multiple layers of underwear and crinoline, the flavor of gelatin aspic meals. (Yuck)

The anxiety of the Cold War, the looming threat of conflict in Vietnam (though there are strong hints that it may not have been over communism, but in search of oil- surprise!!) The hope of Kennedy's Camelot. The desire of the main character and her newfound friend to do good for the poor in the leper colony outside the city. The moral gray areas of those running the leper colony.

Mostly, the underlying politics of colonialism was ever present, and mistrust between the colonizers and the colonized was persistent.

This is a book that requires attention, and thought. Thank you again, Ms. McDermott, for another book that satisfied.

In 1963, shortly after getting married and starting what feels like her adult life, Tricia finds herself in Saigon, where her husband has been stationed. Always shy, Tricia struggles to navigate her new home. Then she meets, Charlene, the wife of a prominent executive who has been living in Saigon for a few years. Charlene seems to take an interest in Tricia, and invites her to join in her efforts to raise money to provide support for injured children in Vietnam. As Tricia finds herself drawn deeper into Charlene's world, she comes to see that what so much of what seemed simple -- including her marriage and what is happening in the war -- is actually much more complex. Over 50 years later, Charlene's daughter reached out to Tricia, prompting the two to reflect about their overlapping time in Saigon and what has become of their lives since then.

This is a powerful novel about marriage, motherhood, and altruism. Well written and with strong and nuanced characters, the book is a perceptive story about how we choose the lives we lead.

Highly recommended!

I read about half of this and am giving up on it. I’m struggling to find value in this story. It feels like she’s criticizing her own story the whole time, but then why tell the story at all?

Patricia writes a letter reminiscing on her time living in Saigon, during the Vietnam War, as a member of the isolated American dependants- the family members brought over by advisors and workers - to Rainey, the daughter of a woman she knew there. Rainey remembered Patricia for her kindness as an adult then, and reached out for the story of their strange lives there, on the periphery of war, and the way her mother Charlene did business and charity in the turbulent city.

This was a beautifully written book, and for someone like me (a non-American with little knowledge of the Vietnam War) quite fascinating. It’s a complicated portrait of everyone involved in this weird colonial community, and also an exploration of the white saviour complex. Not as ponderous as I wanted it to be at times, it was still a well-framed story.

Absolution opens at a garden party in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Newlywed Tricia has just arrived with her engineer husband and is slowly falling into the role of expat wife among the other "bright young men and their pretty little wives rising." She is somewhat uncomfortable with the privileged position which she now holds in the human hierarchy of Saigon but has no doubts about the appropriateness of her country's presence in Vietnam or its military endeavors. Tricia is intent on being a "helpmeet" to her husband and hopes to soon begin a family. She has few ambitions beyond those when she is suddenly swept under the wing of Charlene, a glamorous and enterprising mother-of-three and wife of an American businessman.

Tricia is at first mystified at first as to why Charlene would take such an interest in her but she accompanies her nonetheless to various charity and fund-raising opportunities providing stuffed animals to children and silk clothes to lepers. Slowly she begins to see that her own shy and saintly demeanor have been useful to Charlene in opening doors and purses for the other woman's various causes. Tricia questions to herself whether these acts of charity are truly helpful to the Vietnamese people, and in a future timeline she reflects on the role of Charlene as a white savior.

Later sections of the book are narrated by Charlene's daughter Rainey whose identity was also strongly shaped by her self-asserting mother. Rainey is aware that some of her family's wealth came from business deals that took advantage of the political situation in an unstable country but she was a child in Vietnam and has few memories of that time. Rainey is a sympathetic character and I appreciated her chapters of the book but McDermott deprives us a section narrated by her enigmatic mother. All the better to allow the reader to judge her choices and motives perhaps?

This novel will make an excellent book club selection. Tricia, Rainey and Charlene are all fantastic characters to dissect and some of the pivotal decisions that they make create significant consequences for others.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital review copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Alice McDermott's quiet, thought-provoking new novel, Absolution is a masterpiece in storytelling. Weaving the past and present and multiple lives together, then novel is a story of reckoning with the past and one's place in it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

Fans of Anne Patchett and Elizabeth Strout will relish in this beautiful story! Highly recommended!

4.5. Alice McDermott is a masterful storyteller and I have so enjoyed her other books. I’ve also had the privilege in years past to see her speak at my book groups. Her new novel, Absolution, did not disappoint. In fact, she hit it out of the ballpark. Although her other books seemed to focus on the stories of Irish Americans, this one less so. The story focuses on two women, Tricia and Charlene. They are both in Vietnam in the early 60s, having dutifully followed their husbands for their work without question. The novel involves letter writing between Tricia and Charlene’s daughter, Rainey, many years after they left Vietnam, with Rainey describing times with her mother and it’s impact on her and her family.. Rainey and Tricia were brought together many years later through Dom, a sweet, ethical and moral GI who knew Charlene and Tricia through their charitable good deeds. This is a very poignant novel encompassing so many themes. Charlene and Tricia had a very complex yet dynamic relationship during the short time they were in Vietnam together. They were alike in many ways, as in being “do gooders,” yet they also were very dissimilar. Charlene was very manipulative, and often woukd cross many lines to get what what she wanted for her “benevolent and charitable” deeds. Tricia was very straight laced yet had her moments, too, of crossing the line with her “white lies.” Therein, one of the themes of the appropriate title Absolution. As in her other novels, Ms. McDermott utilized religion in this book. Tricia and her husband were devout Catholics, and religion permeated throughout Tricia’s life with her family, her husband, friends, education, upbringing and her moral compass. The novel also focuses on the constraints and adherence to conformity women experienced prior to the feminist movement not too long after this time. In my view, Charlene we’ll exemplified the woman trying to remove the constraints on women. Tricia was a conformist in many senses but also had an independent streak as demonstrated in her college and post college summers with her friend Stella. Ms McDermott’s apt descriptions of the times, the hot and humid landscape in Vietnam, and the moral issues were right on point. While the Americans had their garden and evening parties, galas, and charitable events, the war was raging not too far away, with people displaced, poverty, traumatic injuries, debilitating illnesses and death. All characters are so well defined, but most particularly the women whose incredible strength is so well depicted, the protagonists, the families, friends, and acquaintances, but also the Vietnamese women. However, the men were also so well defined, as in Dom, Tricia’s and Charlene’s husbands, and the business and military men in Vietnam. The theme of absolution is also predominant through forgiveness, redemption, penance, but also the constraints of “moral obligation” and “inconsequential good.” Although this is a wonderful historical fiction of the grueling, tempestuous and fast living times, this novel is much more than that. It is beautifully written. A true masterpiece on so many counts. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an honest and candid review.

Absolution gives us a view into the lives of well-off American women living in Saigon during the Vietnam War. These society women engage in what one character refers to as “inconsequential good” - token acts of charity that allow them to feel good about themselves, arguably much more than they actually help. All while surrounding themselves with all manner of Vietnamese servants, which they treat quite similarly to children or pets.

The character of Tricia provides the primary narration, with biting and incisive wit and observations, as she holds herself apart from the colonial culture and at the same time engages in it to varying degrees, eager as anyone else to fit in and find a place.

McDermott paints a rich tapestry of life in this time and place, and a layered and nuanced commentary on these women, which could easily be applied in a much broader scale to the charitable privileged classes en masse. There’s so much to think about, with what is clearly not a black-and-white issue, and she handles it with skill, while still providing an entertaining tale and lively characters.

A phenomenal read which I will definitely be revisiting in the future.

Thank you Alice McDermott, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

A beautifully written novel of women and acts of kindness that reverberate in ways both good and bad down the years from 1963 Vietnam. Patricia-who Charlene calls Tricia- has lived a small life and, newly married to Peter is more than a little at sea when they move to Saigon. She's appalled by Charlene at first but taken by her young daughter Rainey, who will also tell part of their story later in the novel. Charlene wraps Tricia into her good works, into creating Barbie dolls dressed in Vietnamese clothing, into helping at a children's hospital, and, most critically, into going with her to a leper colony. Charlene is brash but she's also tender when it's needed. Rainey's story is twined with that of Dom, who was a conscientious objector serving as a medic - and who was with the women at the hospital and leper colony. This unfolds sneakily with bits that will surprise. McDermott writes in a somewhat mannered way but she wraps you into caring about these characters more than you might imagine. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. A terrific read.