Absolution
Absolution
McDermott, Alice
product information
Condition: New, UPC: 9798885794794, Publication Date: Fri, December 1, 2023, Type: Hardcover ,
join & start selling
description
lives on the margins of the Vietnam War, from the renowned winner of the National Book Award.

You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives.

American women--American wives--have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era's mandate to be "helpmeets" to their ambitious husbands with their own, inchoate impulse to "do good" for the people of Vietnam.

Sixty years later, Charlene's daughter, spurred by an encounter with an aging Vietnam vet, reaches out to Tricia. Together, they look back at their time in Saigon, taking wry account of that pivotal year and of Charlene's altruistic machinations, and discovering as they do how their own lives as women on the periphery--of politics, of history, of war, of their husbands' convictions--have been shaped and burdened by the same sort of unintended consequences that followed America's tragic interference in Southeast Asia.

A virtuosic new novel from Alice McDermott, one of our most observant, most affecting writers--about folly and grace, obligation, sacrifice, and, finally, the quest for absolution in a broken world.

reviews

Be the first to write a review

member goods

No member items were found under this heading.

notems store

A Cat, a Man, and ...

by Tanizaki, Junichiro

Paperback /Paperback

$11.96

Demon Copperhead

by Kingsolver, Barbara

Audio /Compact Disc

$52.69

The Book of Dreams

by George, Nina

Hardcover /Hardcover

$20.25

listens & views

RARE AULD TIMES REVISITED

by CELTIC SOUNDS

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$13.75

FOR IT IS WRITTEN

by RENE

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$15.75

CORONA

by MISS,LULA

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$15.49

POR EL MAR

by ORDOEZ,JOSETE

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$13.99

Return Policy

All sales are final

Shipping

No special shipping considerations available.
Shipping fees determined at checkout.