Author: Alice McDermott
Published: October 31, 2023 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Format: Hardcover, 324 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
First Sentence: There were so many cocktail parties in those days.
Blurb: In Saigon in 1963, two young American wives form a wary alliance. Tricia is a starry-eyed newlywed, married to a rising oil engineer “on loan” to US Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a talented hostess and determined altruist, on a mission to relieve the “wretchedness” she sees all around her.
When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with baskets filled with candy and toys, they descend on hospitals, orphanages, and a leper colony on the coast, determined to relieve suffering, no matter the cost.
Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia, now widowed and living in Washington. As the two relive their shared experience in Saigon, they are forced to come to terms with the ways their own lives have been shaped and stunted by Charlene’s pursuit of “inconsequential good.”
My Opinion: I am not a usual reader of literary fiction, but I was drawn to this book. What I found was an amalgamation of naiveté, privilege, recollection, and circumstance that will linger with me for a long while.
1960s Saigon, Patricia, an expat wife, joins a circle of women led by domineering Charlene, a force of nature that quickly scoops up all in her path and into her latest money-making scheme of charitable work. By the end of the book, I couldn’t tell if Charlene meant well or was a sociopath.
The writing is absorbing. Not in a can’t look away feel, but in an all-encompassing power dynamic and the singular focus of Charlene to save the Vietnamese people from themselves and be the Queen Bee to her blinded followers.
Told in an epistolary format, Patricia echoes her past in letters with Charlene’s daughter, Rainey. This allows the reader insight into the limitations that a woman of the ’60s faced. It will also leave you uncomfortable with the way the entitled woman acted, and after years of reflection, you can see Patricia seeking absolution.
The brilliance of this book lies in how Alice McDermott can make the reader feel both empathy and discomfort. I’m not going to say this is a quick read since I found myself putting the book down and reflecting. Quoting. Being transported to the time and place. Then trying to put myself in Patricia’s shoes and wondered what choices I would have made in the stifling times.
Blurb: In Saigon in 1963, two young American wives form a wary alliance. Tricia is a starry-eyed newlywed, married to a rising oil engineer “on loan” to US Navy Intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a talented hostess and determined altruist, on a mission to relieve the “wretchedness” she sees all around her.
When Tricia miscarries, Charlene sweeps her into a cabal of well-dressed do-gooder American wives. Armed with baskets filled with candy and toys, they descend on hospitals, orphanages, and a leper colony on the coast, determined to relieve suffering, no matter the cost.
Sixty years later, Charlene’s daughter reaches out to Tricia, now widowed and living in Washington. As the two relive their shared experience in Saigon, they are forced to come to terms with the ways their own lives have been shaped and stunted by Charlene’s pursuit of “inconsequential good.”
My Opinion: I am not a usual reader of literary fiction, but I was drawn to this book. What I found was an amalgamation of naiveté, privilege, recollection, and circumstance that will linger with me for a long while.
1960s Saigon, Patricia, an expat wife, joins a circle of women led by domineering Charlene, a force of nature that quickly scoops up all in her path and into her latest money-making scheme of charitable work. By the end of the book, I couldn’t tell if Charlene meant well or was a sociopath.
The writing is absorbing. Not in a can’t look away feel, but in an all-encompassing power dynamic and the singular focus of Charlene to save the Vietnamese people from themselves and be the Queen Bee to her blinded followers.
Told in an epistolary format, Patricia echoes her past in letters with Charlene’s daughter, Rainey. This allows the reader insight into the limitations that a woman of the ’60s faced. It will also leave you uncomfortable with the way the entitled woman acted, and after years of reflection, you can see Patricia seeking absolution.
The brilliance of this book lies in how Alice McDermott can make the reader feel both empathy and discomfort. I’m not going to say this is a quick read since I found myself putting the book down and reflecting. Quoting. Being transported to the time and place. Then trying to put myself in Patricia’s shoes and wondered what choices I would have made in the stifling times.
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