An engrossing collection about the brutality and confusion of the Vietnam War.
A debut collection of fiction and nonfiction ruminates on the Vietnam War and other calamities.
The fog of war fills every page of this volume, preventing clarity and necessitating an uncertain, grasping speculation on the part of everyone involved: characters, readers, and author. The nonfiction section is dominated by Tiffany’s “Vietnam Anti-Memoirs,” a novella-length series of essays accounting for different periods in the life of an Army combat medic who served in the war: witnessing an unintentional massacre of civilians in 1966; searching for accurate representations of the conflict in the books and movies made in the following decades; returning to the country in the ’90s in search of closure. The fiction section features two stories set during the war. “Saigon Passional” tells the tale of a member of the Women’s Army Corps working in the Army Mortuary, where she must see to the body of a Green Beret who bears strange wounds reminiscent of a crucifixion. The title story follows a Special Forces sergeant assigned to guard the wife of an American dignitary in the early days of the war. Other fictional tales are set in Frederick the Great’s Berlin and ancient Rome, but the shadow of Vietnam hangs over even these unrelated stories. Tiffany has a fine eye for the surreal, locating and highlighting the most startling aspects of a given scenario. The author is at his best when he offers direct descriptions and stark images, as here, where a medic tends to the wounds of the civilians his countrymen have just shot: “They cowered in their pain, seeming to await further brutality. They were even sheepish in their agony. As he toiled over the wounds he repeated again and again, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ They shrunk from his words.” The nonfiction pieces generally work better than the fiction ones, as Tiffany’s essayistic tendencies sometimes clutter the stories’ pages and weigh down the narrative momentum. Even so, there is an odd cohesion to the book. Fiction and nonfiction seem to blur even within individual pieces, and an aesthetic of fragmentation hovers above all. The author may not have solved the problem of how to write about the Vietnam War, but this volume seems a step in the right direction.
An engrossing collection about the brutality and confusion of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-65051-7
Page Count: 293
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
