The Women by Kristin Hannah was first published in the UK in 2024.
The book begins in California’s Coronado Island where Frances (Frankie) McGrath and her brother Finley have had an idyllic sheltered childhood. Their father hadn’t been able to take part in WW2 and had always felt bad about it, it made him ultra patriotic, he even has a ‘wall of heroes’ in his home office. After Finley graduates from the Naval Academy he’s sent to Vietnam, Frankie is determined to follow him, but neither the Navy nor the Air Force will accept her as a nurse, but the Army does. Before she even gets to Vietnam they get the news that Finley is dead, but it’s too late for Frankie to back out. She’s thrown into a hell on earth with just three months training.
The first half of the book is her experiences in Vietnam and the two women Barb and Ethel who get her through it all. But they’re all damaged souls.
Frances had signed up for another year in Vietnam. When she does get back home it’s to a very different society from the one she had left. She is spat on by people when they see her in her army uniform. The people have turned completely against the war, no heroes’ welcome for any combatants or nurses, in fact when Frankie goes looking for help about her mental state she’s informed that there were no women in Vietnam! Obviously nurses didn’t count.
Frankie’s father is even worse than everyone else, his daughter had defied him to go to Vietnam and train as a nurse, instead of staying home and being an obedient daughter, just as her mother had been an obedient wife.
It’s Barb and Ethel who come to Frankie’s aid when she falls apart, time and again, although they’ve each had struggles of their own.
The Women is the opposite of a comfort read really, but it’s important that the truth about the Vietnam war is told, however uncomfortable and harrowing it might be. I vaguely remember it being on the UK news, but it ended when I was a youngster so I did learn quite a bit about it and the aftermath. It seems strange that something I remember being on TV as it happened, albeit I was young – is now tagged as historical fiction.
Thanks so much for this review! I hadn’t heard of this author (believe it or not) but immediately after seeing it, bought this and The Nightingale. What wars do to people on or returning to the home front is a subject of endless fascination to me. I am American, and old enough to remember the Nam years, and what it did to my generation, our brothers and boyfriends. My father and stepfather both saw combat in World War Two, which left permanent scars, physical and mental. Stepdad seems to rarely have enjoyed a peaceful night’s sleep ever afterward.
The ordeal of the nurses in Nam is not a new subject to me, having read many firsthand accounts – Home Before Morning by Lynda Van Devanter is probably the best known; also American Daughter Gone to War by Winnie Smith, among many many others.
I love your blog for all the new titles it introduces me to – like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get! (Not very good for my credit card bill, though.) Many thanks for everything.
Bonnie Shaljean,
I’m so glad you’re enjoying ‘Pining’, but as a Scot I’m a bit worried about your credit card bill! I try to borrow as many books as I can from the library, I’m trying to keep their stats up as the local council has closed so many of them already. I think my reading taste is best described as being eclectic, from classics to Edwardian children’s books and everything in between. It just depends on my mood. Amazingly I don’t remember hearing about Kristin Hannah until very recently when two of my blogpals mentioned they had been reading The Women. My parents and all their siblings were involved in WW2, so I got war stories from them as a child instead of fairy tales! My father-in-law was at Dunkirk and was lucky to get off the beach and back to blighty, if he hadn’t my husband would never have been born. Others were in Singapore/Japan, Egypt, ‘the jungle?!’, Europe, Palestine until 1948, they certainly got about. I must say though that it was my mother who told the stories because the men rarely mentioned any experiences they had. I’ll have a look for the books you mention.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Katrina
Reading this review, I thought of Home Before Morning, which I read a million years ago. And sure enough, there’s a connection. So I’ve reserved it at the library, #815 in line. Thanks for blogging about it.
Susan D,
I hope you enjoy it – when you get a hold of it! Mind you it’s a bit grim at times, but that’s war for you.