The Women
“The Women” by Kristin Hannah has been on my list for awhile. It has been consistently unavailable at the library, but I was finally able to borrow it from my sister-in-law. I am familiar with and have enjoyed other work from Kristin Hannah, “The Great Alone” was a particular favorite.
The Summary (No spoilers)
This story is a work of historical fiction that centers around the life of a young woman, “Frankie”, who served as a combat nurse in Vietnam. The first half of the book is set during her two tours in-country, and the second half is about her return home and the process of adjustment that she went through as a female Vietnam vet.
Touchstones
The theme that registered with me most poignantly throughout this book was that of the Frankie’s wrestling with the politics of the war and her experience of it. It struck me not because I share any of her experiences, but because she expressed sentiments that feel true to my life as an American of privilege in 2025.
“It feels obscene to have a life and yet… it feels obscene not to.”
In a world where Palestinian children are allowed to starve by the thousands, where global conflicts have made refugees of millions, where immigrants and citizens alike are deported suddenly and without due process, where inequitable deployment of the justice system locks away inordinate numbers of Black and Hispanic men, where bureaucracy keeps people in cycles of poverty, it certainly does feel obscene to have a life. I am fortunate, privileged. My life is stable, predictable, safe, satisfactory. And, this is my one wild and precious life and it would be obscene to waste it. Just as I should not hoard the gifts of my life, just as I should use what I have to ease the burden of others where I am able, I should also not feel guilt or shame about my many comforts.
”The America Frankie believed in, the shining Camelot of her youth, was gone, or lost. Or maybe it had always been a lie.”
I have felt this disenchantment with a variety of things in recent years - religion, American government, systems, individuals. Perhaps it is a feature of age, perhaps of education or of expanded life experiences. The golden patina wears off at some point and we must face the reality that beauty and disappointment live side by side in everything. In the book, Frankie wrestles with wondering what the point of the war is while simultaneously wanting and believing that all the deaths she is seeing are worth something, achieving something. Many things can be true at once. It is important to be honest (with ourselves and others) about these simultaneous truths, to hold onto the good while acknowledging the bad. I think part of the beautiful and frustrating part of life is that we never arrive at the peak, there is always more left to do. I have found that the more I learn, but more I realize I don’t know. The more questions I answer, the more questions I have and the murkier the water seems to get. Everything is nuance, I believe it wise to hold onto that truth.
My Review
I definitely enjoyed this book, and it gave me a new kind of perspective than anything I had read before. Vietnam is a war that I know comparatively little about, and to consider the service and adjustment to home from the characters’ perspective was valuable. Kristin asks this story to cover a lot of ground - wartime military service, the politics of Vietnam (and to some degree the Civil Rights movement), how we treat our vets and whose service “counts”, PTSD, addiction, love, loss, grief, friendship, honor & shame. On the whole I think she did a pretty good job exploring these things through the characters. The last 25% of the book felt a little chaotic, like I was getting jerked around from one extreme to another in a way that felt unrealistic and forced. However, while I make that critique I recognize that may very well be intentional, as if that is how life felt to Frankie herself. I give “The Women” 4 stars.