The Women
By Kristin Hannah
Published 2024
Read May 2024
It’s mid-1960’s and before the Coronado Island-San Diego bridge was built. The book opens during the going-away party for the older brother and only sibling of Francis (Frankie) McGrath. He’s graduated from Annapolis and is headed to Vietnam on a ship. Frankie’s parents have made clear to her that their plan for her is to marry well, consistent with their stature in society. Frankie’s dad never served in the military but has a wall of fame for those in the family who have. The wall includes wedding pictures for the women. Frankie has another idea, prompted by a comment by a friend of her brother at this party—women can be heroes too. She has completed a nursing course and enlists in the army to be a nurse in Vietnam—the only military service that will ship nurses to Vietnam with no military experience. Her brother is killed just before she leaves for Vietnam and her parents are both devastated by this loss and furious at her for enlisting.
We witness Frankie’s “trial by fire” as she’s dropped into a hospital dealing with all the Vietnam trauma we’ve heard about. Hannah’s writing engages the reader rapidly and completely and we are quickly cheering for her and her sister nurses. She’s smart and committed and manages to become a competent nurse that the doctors rely on—and hit on and might abuse if out at night alone. She deflects potential relationships with married or engaged men even when she is in love with them. Things get even tougher for her when she is transferred to a unit essentially at the front.
But the toughest challenges Frankie faces happen when her term is complete, and she returns home to a country that is routinely spitting at returning soldiers. She learns her parents have lied to others, indicating she’s been travelling in Europe, not trying to keep soldiers alive in Vietnam. The veteran support services don’t recognize that women were in Vietnam at all, so she has no legitimate claim to their services. Her parents expect her to resume her role in their pre-conceived story for her and don’t even want to hear anything about her time in Vietnam. Our hearts break as Frankie’s does. It’s not surprising this book became a best seller. The author’s writing drives you to turn the pages; the protagonist is engaging and suffers mightily and believably state-side. The medical scenes, the relaxation scenes, the state-side scenes are all believable. We want Frankie to find something to pull her through the transition that allows her to make a new life for herself. As an aside–this reader wondered how Frankie would have fared if she didn’t have parents who financially supported her during her darkest days, but it still worked. Overall, the story is perfect for a movie or a streaming service series or both! If the popularity of the book, movie, series, etc help highlight the little credit given women for the critical roles they have played in war throughout history it’s all good.
MarshaReads.com 