Review by Sister Kathleen Feeley, SSND
Alice McDermott has been my favorite fiction writer since she accepted an invitation to attend the SSND Jubilee Book Club to discuss her novel, The Ninth Hour, about 15 years ago.
Her new novel, Absolution, set in Vietnam in the early 1960’s, explores the lives of the wives of American men who were sent to Vietnam as consultants during the Vietnam War. The war is hardly mentioned; this story involves only the military wives.
Two key women propel the story. Patricia Kelly, shy and hesitant, newly married to Peter, a civilian engineer “on loan” to Navy intelligence, sees her role as a helpmate to her husband. She is uneasy in Vietnam.
Shortly after Patricia arrives, she meets Charlene as hostess of a party. The meeting demonstrates Charlene’s powerful, dominating personality. She asks Patricia, whom she immediately renames “Tricia,” to hold her baby for a few moments, and disappears.
The baby vomits all over Tricia, who spends the rest of the party in a bedroom, helped by a kind Vietnam servant, waiting for her clothes to dry. There, Tricia meets Rainy, Charlene’s young daughter, and connects with her.
Tricia and Charlene’s relationship is not really friendship, but domination.
Charlene is bent on helping poor and ailing Vietnamese. To do this, she enlists the help of women who will do her bidding.
They take toys and candy to children in hospitals; import Barbie dolls, dress them in Vietnamese clothing and give them away.
They go to a leper colony, note sizes, and, with the help of an expert Vietnamese seamstress, make new clothes for them.
One can feel the good will, but essential uselessness of their activities. It seems to mirror the activities of the American men advisors.
However, one can slowly see the growth of Tricia’s self-determination, which is realized fully as the book ends in an astonishing scene.
The structure of the book is most unusual: the epistolary novel is reborn. The novel is comprised of three letters: two are from now-widowed Tricia to Rainy, Charlene’s daughter, describing events 60 years after their occurrence.
This allows Tricia to view, and show the reader, her younger self. One is from Rainy to Tricia.
Character development is masterful; background is informative; writing is flawless.
Absolution enhances its author’s sterling reputation.
