“Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world.” —Jeanette Winterson
Kristin Hannah is a pro when it comes to opening doors. We know this, right? She walked us into a part of history seldom explored—French women’s experience in World War II; she introduced us to the debilitating Dust Bowl era via Elsa Martinelli; and transported us to America’s last frontier in Alaska’s Great Alone. In her latest novel, The Women, she planked us in 1960’s Nam. I’ve read plenty of historical fiction surrounding war in my day. But I’ve read next to nothing about Vietnam. (Of course, I watched my share fair of M*A*S*H, there is that.) I’m glad I got to enter the war-torn world of Indochina via a twenty-year-old nursing student named Frankie McGrath.
Hannah is a pro when it comes to shining a light on women who have been overlooked in certain parts of history. Of course, Vietnam is no exception. I didn’t realize many Americans refused to acknowledge women served as combat nurses in the conflict. Was Margaret Houlihan a figment of my tv’s imagination? Frankie is warmer than Major Houlihan. And more naturally compassionate. Both fictional characters serve as excellent nurses. In The Women, “each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, [Frankie] meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.” While I saw the ending of Frankie’s story coming, I appreciated Hannah’s sensitivity to the destructive nature of war long after the shells and bullets stopped flying. This doesn’t touch The Nightingale. But I’m glad opened the door to Kristin Hannah’s latest and learned about the sobering world of long-ago Nam.