The Women by Kristin Hannah (Historical Novel, 2024).
This meaty (464 page) and powerful novel of the Vietnam War and its aftermath follows Frances “Frankie” McGrath from a naive young nurse thrown into all the horrors that brutal conflict had to offer and onward into a bitter homecoming, facing abuse and multiple betrayals (from strangers, supposed lovers and family alike) and a toxic mix of emotionally repressed, guilt-fueled self-recriminations plus a roaring case of PTSD. Only a few others provide real support–two loyal fellow nurses and a compassionate psychiatrist most especially–while the country as a whole is by turns indifferent and actively hostile.
Her gung-ho Dad and timid Mother patriotically cheered with Frankie as her older brother went off to war. But when she resolved to follow, becoming an army nurse, tradition-minded Dad was appalled. Things didn’t improve when the brother was killed. Then an utterly unprepared Frankie got thrown into the war in all its confused and irrational madness. She slowly adjusted and became a top-notch combat nurse, but losses mount–fueled by the willful dishonesty of the government and others.
The book throws pretty much everything imaginable at Frankie, including the absurdly stubborn notion that, as a woman, she wasn’t a ‘real’ veteran and never experienced combat. The whole “there were no women in Vietnam” denial of what she went through is made doubly hard to bear as she is at once is repelled by such ignorance even as she rationalizes it away.
She goes through a litany of ups and downs, harming herself with her own inability (or unwillingness) to open up about her trauma. Only slowly (and with multiple painful regressions and set-backs) does she come to terms with her altered reality and worldview–and those of others. Frankie will eventually grow and develop into a veterans’ advocate, focused on the pain of her fellow post-military women and the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial provides a suitable, solemn but cleansing climax to the book.
This is a stunning, vivid and emotionally true novel, capturing all the heartbreak, shame and final acceptance that individuals and the country as a whole went through in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
Very much recommended.
jimleeauthor 