I have conflicted feelings about this novel. The writing is excellent, descriptions of locale are atmospheric, and characters are pretty well developed. But there are some instances in the story that seem egregious by today’s standards that I wish would have been addressed in the final “current day” chapter. Without using spoilers, a couple of these are dressing a white American Barbie in traditional Vietnamese clothes for the kids, and assuming a baby will have a better life in America away from her/his native land. As infuriating as the women are portrayed—passive, subservient, entitled, shopaholics—much of that does reflect the role many women played in the late ‘50s and early 60s.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrah, Straus, and Giroux Books for the ARC to read and review.

Reflective story of an American woman’s experience living in Vietnam in the early 1960s. Examined in the present, the protagonist looks at a pivotal time in her life that transformed her into the woman she became. Strong character development. The shifting structure of the story at the end of the novel could have been introduced earlier. Some storylines were not fully realized.

It is 1963 and Tricia is a young wife newly arrived in Saigon in 1963 with her husband, a lawyer who is on loan to the Navy. She’s nervous and unsure of herself, but desperate to make a good impression in the community of high ranking military personnel and their spouses. She comes under the influence of Charlene, a sheer force of nature who has decided to use her time in Vietnam to do good. Charlene pulls Tricia into her schemes - having a Vietnamese maid make dolls clothes to sell to raise funds, distributing gifts to children and their families in hospital, providing nice sets of silk clothes to those living with leprosy - often giving Tricia credit for her own ideas.

The storyline of their charity work was really well done. On the one hand the reader could feel for those women who had skills and talents but little to occupy their time, with even the mundane tasks of cooking, cleaning and childcare, handed over to servants. On the other hand, and especially when viewed through a twenty-first century socio-political lens, it is clear they knew little about Vietnam, it’s people and the issues they faced. Rather than talking to locals to find out what they might reasonably help with, Charlene and her friends acted unilaterally, doing whatever made them feel good. At best it was a mere drop in the ocean; at worst it may not have actually been needed or wanted, and possibly put people in danger. I really like the way McDermott left the reader to mull over the moral ambiguities, rather than hit them over the head with a message.

This is a quiet understated book, something aided by it being told in long letters between Charlene’s daughter and Tricia sixty years after their time in Vietnam. This provides time and space for the benefit of hindsight and for reflection. McDermott expertly captured the slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of the military ex-pat community, its classism, sexism and racism. Her main characters were vividly brought to life. The contrast between Charlene, very imperious, so dynamic and sure of herself, and Tricia, still struggling to feel like a full adult, naive and lacking in confidence, couldn’t have been stronger.

I do want to mention here that Tricia struggled with infertility and there is a trigger warning for miscarriage. Her struggle to have a baby also leads to one of the most jaw dropping scenes in the book. That it felt entirely true and authentic while still getting my jaw to hit the floor is testament to McDermott’s skill as a writer.

One aspect of this book did give me pause though and that is it’s ableism. In the second part of the book we are introduced to Jamie, a minor character who has Down Syndrome. He is twenty years old but is referred to by other characters as a poor kid and a damaged child. Someone mentions the age of his mother and questions whether she’d had amniocentesis - presumably implying that she should have had an abortion. This is balanced slightly by mention of some positive albeit stereotypical qualities attributed to those with Down syndrome and the fact that Jamie was adopted - in other words deliberately chosen. None of it was essential to the story though and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall though I really enjoyed this reflective character driven novel. It’s a study of a young woman at a key juncture in her life, a portrait of a complicated friendship, and offers a new lens through which to view America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Many thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for the ARC. Absolution releases on 31 October.

In 1963, the culture of the US was on the precipice of change. The women’s movement, opposition to war and minority rights were soon to come. But in this tightly wound novel, for two corporate wives in Saigon life is supposedly all about taking care of their households and husbands, having babies and managing their place in society. These women are (quietly) more than that. Through wonderfully drawn characters and plot, McDermott explores misplaced good intentions, identity and power and privilege.

Unlike many war novels, this one focuses on the wives of engineers and other top military men who have relocated to Saigon during Vietnam War. To many degrees, the life these women live almost seems like the war isn't happening around them as they are in their gated communities, surrounded by servants, swimming pool, elaborate happy hours, and nonstop social gatherings. Yet, there are a "cabal" of women who follow Charlene, a gutsy wife who engages in blackmarket shenanigans and traveling to areas where civilians are not permitted, as she gathers her followers to bring gifts to those who live in leper colonies, orphanages, and are in hospitals. Oddly, her gifts also involving selling Barbie dolls dressed in garb sewn by Vietnamese women, women who probably make very little of the $25 the dolls sell for to Americans as gifts to bring home.

Tricia is a young, newly married wife, who becomes friends with Charlene, and feels brave going on these adventures that her husband knows nothing about. Tricia also suffers from several miscarriages, and Charlene, also had a more or less blackmarket adoption scheme going on also that challenges Tricia's strong Catholicism and moral compass.

Eventually, decades later, one of Charlene's daughter, Rainey, the one who the story is basically being told to through letters, connects with Tricia after she meets a man who was friends with her mother in Saigon. The novel then is sectioned off with Patricia (Tricia) telling her story and Rainey revealing what it was like to be Charlene's daughter, and how her life changed as an adult.

This is an honest novel about the privileged life of those who lived in Saigon while those around them suffered from starvation, separation of family, and death. The author creates characters who question the role of these engineers and their exploration of oil, which tends to be the root of many wars. We see a glimpse of this horrific war from another view, the view of two women of different ages, and the impact the war, or at least living in Saigon during the war, made on them.

The first part of the book, Part I, was somewhat interesting and informative. Being of the same generation as the women in Part I and knowing many people who wound up in Vietnam in those early years, I appreciated her insight.

But then came Part II with a jump from 1963 to, I guess, the current time. The first person account in Part II was from the child of one of our leading ladies in Part I.

Part I was written as a [fictitious] memoir. Part II involved memories of the child’s time in Vietnam, but not written as a memoir.

The story got more and more jumbled and confusing.

I appreciate this early readers’ copy from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I"m a huge fan of Alice McDermott and this one might be my new favorite. It turns in some unexpected directions and I did feel I wanted more of the original storyline, before I shifted and then shifted back again. But I think wanting more is a compliment really. The story and the writing are so good, it almost feels like she's toying with us, she can give us more or pull back and it's all still so good.

Absolution is a book about the role of the American wives in Vietnam in 1963 and some follow up years later. Alice McDermott introduces us to some of these women. The main characters and situations seem alive and true. Morality, class, forgiveness, volunteering and infertility are among some of the issues tackled. Absolution is a well written, compelling read.

Clearly, I'm going to be in the minority here, but I just don't get the praise for this. If anything, this is very "White People Taco Night" or "Chicken Broccoli" if that makes any sense?

Yes, yes, the writing is beautiful, and it's a reflection on a specific time in history and a slice of life for these over-privileged, white women who were married to military officers who were stationed in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) during a very specific time. There's a very veiled discussion of race and guilt, but honestly, it's just so convoluted and mixed and jumbled within the 300+ pages that it's really beside the point. Tricia's part and her past timeline, as well as her timeline in Vietnam, is strange. Her guilt over not having children is interesting because it's what is so expected of women of her time.

Tricia's tales of Charlene's 'good works' show some good intentions but again, it's the white savior complex that so often comes with books and films. The continual misnaming of Ly as Lily in the book was infuriating. Ly clearly said that it was her name and yet Tricia said that she just couldn't adjust.
The leper village, the officer's club, the Barbies....

I feel that there is so much more going on during this time in Saigon that could be explored, way more than what these women were doing. Their shopping and lunching were so meaningless. The lives of the women working for these women were more interesting to me. I wanted to know more about them, where did they go at night? Where were their families? What happened to them when the white people left? That is interesting to me, not what sort of house someone moved into afterward.

This is what I mean by "White People Taco Night". This is the oatmeal version of a war story so that it's palatable for white women to read and sleep at night. I don't need a continuation of the white savior that no one asked for.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Alice McDermott is one of my favorite authors and this new titles does not disappoint. Triscia, rechristens from Patsy by her new friend Charlene, is the wife of an engineering advisor in South Vietnam as war is eminent. While
Triscia is less than adventurous, Charlene brings her along on missions to help the people of Vietnam. Most historical fiction of this period center on the male experience. I LOVED this book!

You know those quiet books like Brooklyn/Colm Toibin..or any of Alice McDermott’s others? This is right there. Set it Saigon, a group of ex-pat women and their lives as Wives - such a fascinating time and the character were 💯.

Truly a masterful exploration of the complexities of marriage and societal expectations set against the backdrop of 1950s suburban America. The story begins with Tricia, a dutiful wife and mother, whose life revolves around catering to her husband's needs and maintaining the facade of a perfect home. Set in a time when women were expected to be the ever-loyal helpmeet, Tricia's character becomes a poignant symbol of the stifling roles placed upon women in that era. McDermott skillfully portrays the stifling conformity of the era, where women were often expected to find their absolution in servitude to their husbands and families. All this is explored through the lens of Saigon, Vietnam where Tricia,her husband and another woman (Charlene) and her husband were stationed.

The title, 'Absolution,' takes on a multi-layered significance as the novel progresses. It not only refers to the religious sense of forgiveness and redemption but also serves as a commentary on the personal sacrifices and penance that Tricia and many women like her, must undergo to navigate the restrictive norms of the time. McDermott's use of Christianity as a recurring theme in her novels is evident in 'Absolution,' where it shapes the characters' moral compass and decisions. The veil of secrecy that shrouds the characters' lives adds depth to the narrative, highlighting the tension between societal expectations and personal desires.

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.

Absolution is about a lively & confident woman, Charlene, who lived overseas with her family in 1964 Saigon. It is told from the point of view of a couple individuals who lived in Charlene's orbit during that time. We learn a lot about the narrators, but Charlene is the thread holding the story together and tethering the main characters as well. The story is well paced and absorbing in the detail used to describe Vietnam before the war escalated. Charlene used her charisma and charm to "do good in the world" throughout her life, especially during her time in Saigon. The novel challenges readers to think about how we help others, if it is an obligation or a requirement, and what if our definition of a "good" deed is not in alignment with those we help?

An amazing book-one of the best I’ve read in quite a while. It seems that Vietnam is now a place that can be discussed the story gives a good description of a vanished time-almost of innocence and lost mores. The writing is extraordinary, the pacing, the characters. It was as though I was sitting and listening to a master story teller. The descriptions made you feel you were there and experiencing everything as the expats did.

It's early days in the Vietnam conflict and nonmilitary personnel were there as liaisons to the military such as engineers. Where these men go, so go their families. This is where we meet newlywed Tricia, a woman who comes across privately judgmental of other privileged women but longing to be one herself. Lucky for Tricia, she is taken in almost immediately by the grand dame of the corporate wives, Charlene.
Charlene is smart, too smart for the other wives. To tone down her drive, she comes up with ideas and credits the new arrival, Tricia. The two women meet frequently, most often during some sort of cocktail party. It is during one of these parties, the idea to create Vietnamese costumes for the very popular Barbie Doll is hatched. A housemaid is basically roped into creating these costumes with the idea being selling them to the wives, or husbands of those in Saigon to send back home. The funds made on the sales are to be used for the local orphanages, etc.
It all sounds good except for Charlene is very manipulative and hard to decide when or if she is being altruistic or self-serving. Put into context of women's limited roles beyond childbearing and husband's career supporting, watching Charlene work behind the scenes to make things happen is a wonder. Each time I thought Charlene was doing something incredibly kind or helpful, it was usually at the expense of someone less fortunate or without a voice.
We also meet Rainey, Charlene's young daughter. Per the standard of the time, Rainey is mostly seen and not heard (voiceless). Tricia is taken with the little girl and is maneuvered to take her off of Charlene's hands. Tricia enjoys Rainey but is aware that she is being manipulated by Charlene and moved away from the adults but she doesn't have the wherewithal to turn Charlene down or confront her over the situation.
Sixty years later and Rainey is now much older and has sought out the Octogenarian, Tricia. She wants to hear her version of that time in Saigon. Wants to know about her mother.
The first portion of the book is Tricia's recollections and we find out what she did with the rest of her life, post Vietnam. We also learn about Rainey's life as well.
Many questionably moral decisions are made during the time spent in Vietnam by Charlene and by acquiescence, Tricia. Also of note was the lack of autonomy for the women as examples of women being granted allowances with "pin money" and even where and how they spend their time.

An interesting Historical Fiction in that the characters were fictional, but certainly attitudes and mores were dead on accurate.
4.25 stars

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux title for granting me access to an early e-copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Absolution is a beautiful novel written with two perspectives, the first narrator is a young woman, Tricia, a shy, always wanting to please newlywed who moves to Saigon with her engineer husband in the very early 60s. Once there she tries to ingratiate herself into the ex-pat community and meets Charlene, a strongly confident mother of three who takes Tricia under her wing. The second narrator is Charlene’s daughter, who tells her story years later when she meets a Vietnam vet who knew her mother.

What I think McDermott does brilliantly in this novel is that while she is telling the story of the two women through their narrative, the main character is actually Charlene. Charlene’s character is so multi-faceted I think there is a scene that sums her character best when, after her funeral, her children are telling stories about her and their aunt asks if they even loved her. Charlene spends her time doing such good (like visiting leper colonies and orphanages) while having moral blindspots at the same time.

I fully enjoyed reading this novel, it is definitely one of my favorites of the year. The middle meandered a bit but I think it painted a picture of pre-American invasion Vietnam that I have not read before and gave me a view of the ex-pat world of Saigon that I didn’t even know existed. I do think I benefited from listening to the audio which was exceptionally well done and kept me engaged (with two different narrators). McDermott drew beautiful character portraits of all the women in this novel.

4.75 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC to review

Well I remember the duck-and-cover school drills from my post-World-War-II childhood when the hot war of my parents’ experience – she an Army nurse, he a military officer – had given way to the dormant tensions of the Cold War, when the threat of the Bomb hung over us like some sort of monster cloud ever ready to rain down Armageddon. And just as Stella, one of the subordinate but most interesting characters in Alice McDermott's provocative fictional rendition of those times, "Absolution," pronounces the school drills ridiculous, so I couldn't help wondering myself at the time just how much protection a desk or whatever else we might be huddling under would afford us from a blast so powerful as to defy comprehension.
An unflinching truth-teller, author McDermott's Stella, amid the Andy Griffith-and-Opie-with-fishing-rods images from the '50s or early '60s that those on the right would have us believe were the defining character of a time when blacks were being hosed down and strung up and otherwise regularly abused and gays, to the extent that they were seen at all outside the closet, were being rousted out and roughed up
like in the movie "The Detective."
And women! Suffice to recall how a male instructor in my college Social Psychology class had no compunction about citing to us as an example of gender differences how a woman might just break down and cry on you if you made too great demands of her, and a South African instructor in my Calculus class flinched not the slightest bit (this must have been around 1965) in telling a female student who dared to come to class in pants that he preferred his female students to dress in skirts (imagine her embarrassment!).
A time so different as to perhaps be inconceivable to young people today, those days of my young adulthood so vividly realized for me in McDermott's novel, which with its Southeast Asia focus recalled even more graphically for me those now long-ago days when I’d never heard of Vietnam and certainly couldn’t have found it on a map, though I do recall drawing my college roommate's attention to a Life or Look spread on the plight of helicopter pilots there. Still, a very distant thing it yet was for me, that quagmire which would end up killing some 58,000 Americans, though it would come knocking at my door soon enough and have me, like my parents, soldiering up. And while I didn't end up having to go to Vietnam myself, I took in with appropriate aghastness the accounts of guys who did have to go, including one who described the heat that hit him as he stepped off the plane at whatever garden spot he'd been delivered to – Saigon? Tan Son Nhut? – as being like having "a hot wet towel thrown in your face."
Hotter still, of course, the actual fighting, and not just tangentially for me, something simply observed from afar, but considerably more personal, with how it killed a couple of friends of mine, one a fellow ROTC member in my college dorm with whom I'd traded laughs about the inanities of some of our respective training experiences and the other an active-duty friend who had the same job specialty as I did, thereby giving his death something of a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God aspect for me. A particular resonance, then, those two deaths lent for me to that Life Magazine photo spread of a few years later showing all those who'd been killed in a single week in Vietnam when the fighting had reached a fever-pitch level.
Still a ways down the road, though, that level of carnage, for the characters in McDermott’s novel, which begins with her protagonist, Patricia, and her adviser husband arriving in country in Saigon in 1963, when it was still early enough in the war, she says, that you could almost believe that Americans had come over to Saigon simply to go shopping, with how that's how the wives mostly occupied themselves — that and worrying about runs in their stockings and rollers and bobby pins as well as just in general functioning as “helpmates” to their adviser husbands. Still something of a"lofty, exotic" adventure Saigon was in those days, she notes, even as she also notes that she and the other wives had all dutifully read "The Ugly American” and Graham Greene’s "The Quiet American," with its sentiments about American interventionism quite at odds with those espoused by American officialdom and pretty much bought hook, line and sinker by the wives.
Not so in-step with the others, though, is the most interesting character for me in the novel, Charlene, a maverick of sorts with a "regal and feral" air who commiserates with a bad moment for Patricia by letting loose with an epithet at a time when, as Patricia notes, women weren't given to using four-letter words – or at least not in public when casual profanity hadn't become as common as it is now. Reminiscent she was for me, Charlene, with her attitudes and outspokenness, of a fellow maverick, Alison Laithwaite, in the Amazon Prime Video series, ”The Last Post,” which I rewatched with great appreciation just the other day for its depiction of the last gasps of British colonialism and its unwavering conviction that, as with the American version, it was making life better for the people being subjugated if they could just be so enlightened as to appreciate what was being done for them.
Very Catholic, that presumption of rulers that they know what's best for the great unwashed, and indeed Patricia's husband tells her that the going joke in his circles is that the CIA is actually the Catholic Intelligence Agency. Fine with him, though, with how it pleases him that the U.S. is supporting a Catholic regime that is keeping godless communism at bay. Something "divinely ordained" he finds about the arrangement, even with the infamous remark of Madame Nhu, she of the form-fitting dresses and heavily penciled eyebrows, that she'd clap her hands if another Buddhist monk barbecued himself in protest of the governing regime. A bit of a rough alliance it made for, Peter acknowledges, to be embedded with such a regime, but nevertheless an alliance that “seemed to portend the redemption he so believed in – redemption not just for the Far East but for all the world."
And indeed there's something of that sentiment of America knowing what’s best for the rest of the world, of its even thinking that it can remake the world in its own image, that informs a campaign of Charlene's to turn over Vietnamese babies for adoption to American women, whom she sees as being better able to provide good lives for the babies. And not just an individual thing with her, the adoption initiative, but an actual official program dubbed Operation Babylift, which, as those of us of a certain age recall and as noted in the novel, was marked by a horrific plane crash in which 78 children were killed. A microcosm, indeed, the crash could be seen as for the whole Vietnam misadventure, with those now-iconic images from America's leave-taking of helicopter evacuations from Saigon rooftops and aircraft being dumped into the sea. A presage, even, the calamitous ending could be seen as for later U.S. involvements as well, most recently our departure from Afghanistan, with those images of people clinging to the sides of that departing U.S. plane.
Not that U.S. initiatives abroad have been universally bad – commendable, to my mind, our support of Ukraine – or that Catholicism doesn't have its finer or nobler moments. I was put in mind, for instance, in reading McDermott’s book, of a movie from those times which I recently rewatched, “The Cardinal,” with its depiction of a stony-faced Tom Tryon the picture of resoluteness as he journeys to the South to help a black priest with his desegregation efforts or as he chides a priest in Austria for seeming to be giving succor to the Reich. No disputing the worthiness of those initiatives, anyway, even if other aspects of the film put me off, and indeed it’s out of a similar notion of the Greater Good or a spirit of Catholic obligation that impels Patricia to teach at a kindergarten in Harlem. And be it out of a Catholic impulse or sheer simple humanitarianism, there’s no faulting the impulse that drives Charlene to help with a leper colony or Stella to journey to Birmingham to help register voters and advocate for integration, initially with Patricia in tow.
Reminiscent her trip was for me of a black college roommate of mine the summer of the Washington civil rights march who set off for the event despite my warning him that it might hurt his studies to be away from them for even a short while, this being a time when, unlike with today's run-away grade inflation, professors took no prisoners – indeed, I was on academic probation myself at the time. So not unwarranted, my note of caution to him, though now, several assassinations and the Birmingham bombing and other outrages of the period later, I've come to think that sometimes external events are indeed of such gravity as to override other immediate personal concerns – a change in perspective not a little buttressed by my reading McDermott’s book.
So something more than just a good read it made for me, with my having identified so forcefully with some of its parts that this review has ended up being more of a personal essay. Which, for all the possible criticism that I've appropriated her book for my own purposes, nevertheless strikes me as the mark of a truly good novel, that it makes for precisely the sort of strong reader identification that Joan Didion, say, always made for me with that distinctive voice of hers, and in fact I heard echoes of her voice in McDermott's novel, as well as echoes of another favorite writer of mine, Ellen Feldman, whose “The Unwitting" remains for me the best novel I’ve ever read about the Cold War.
So with the caveats that I'd have liked to have seen more of Stella’s excursion down South and my not being entirely certain that a dual narrative line adds anything to a novel served well enough by Patricia’s narration alone, I'm disposed to give the novel the strongest possible recommendation, especially for anyone with a background similar to my own. If, like me, you grew up in the postwar years and are put off by those who would make those times better than they were, as if the abuses of blacks that spawned the Civil Rights movement never happened and Vietnam was just a momentary hiccup along the way toward some greater moment for America, if, in short, you're enough of a realist not to doubt the evidence of your own eyes, be it about what happened on Jan. 6 or the havoc that we’re seeing now with the weather (tell the people in Phoenix that climate change is just a liberal fabrication), if, in other words, you're a rational, compassionate human being who appreciates well-done, provocative fiction, then McDermott’s book is for you.

Review “Absolution” by Alice McDermott

In the 1960s, Patricia “Tricia” moves to Saigon with her new husband, a young attorney who has a job with navy intelligence. Tricia is eager to excel in her new role as wife and - hopefully - mother until she meets Charlene and her daughter at a garden party. Quickly, Tricia is pulled into Charlene’s efforts to “do good” for the local population and finds herself torn between playing the dutiful housewife or the philanthropic savior of the poor.

McDermott tells the story of these two women through letters exchanged between Tricia and Charlene’s daughter decades after they left Vietnam. The novel shines a light on a usually hidden perspective of the Vietnam war. Instead of diving into the politics of the war McDermott lifts the curtain of the domestic underbelly of the American presence in Vietnam. The “helpmeets” - wives and local staff - take center stage in this account. Even though this is a historical novel it raises important questions about altruism and philanthropy in general.

I really enjoyed this novel, the new perspective, the unusual subject. It was vivid and beautifully written. This was my first Alice McDermott novel and I think I will be reading more of her work.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to @netgalley for providing this digital ARC!

This book is hands down my favorite read of this year. Masterfully written, Alice McDermott wielded a story from long ago that most of us try to forget. Based off of seemingly true accounts from Vietnam the story follows “Tricia” and Charlene— wives of prominent government men. They’re trails and tribulations of marriage, motherhood and expat-hood.. It was heartbreaking and beautiful. A true gem of work. I would absolutely recommend this book to any book lover.

A huge thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
I just reviewed Absolution by Alice McDermott. #Absolution #NetGalley

After hearing Ann Patchett rave about this book, I knew I had to read it. She did not steer me wrong.

It’s 1963 and the timid Tricia is in Saigon, a helpmeet to her U.S. government-contracted husband. She is swept up into the frenzy of charities and projects of another American wife, Charlene. Tricia recounts her experience during this year from the present day to Charlene’s grown daughter, who has crossed paths with a man from their time in Vietnam, and they each reflect on their lives and the people they knew.

This story is enthralling, beautifully written, and at times unbelievably heartwrenching. Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, the focus on the women from America and the Vietnamese women they encounter,
in a context that is domestic rather than militaristic, is extraordinary and novel. I could not put it down!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.