Absolution

Immerse yourself in Vietnam in 1963. There is a marked contrast between the sheltered American compounds and their lives of ease against starving Vietnamese children, the misery of leprosy and napalm victims.  This reads like a memoir and I was hooked instantly.

 

The characters are brought to life quite vividly in McDermott's narrative about American women in Saigon.  The husbands are there in Vietnam, engineers who go to work and leave their wives in a beautiful home, surrounded by servants, luxuries and throwing garden parties.  The naive wives who turn their heads away from suffering and want.

And then you meet Charlene.  A character I didn't like in the beginning but had a very different opinion of by the end. Charlene is one of the wives who followed their husbands to Vietnam but make no mistake, she isn't like the others.

The conversations between Charlene and Tricia were interesting.  Tricia was pliable and willing to go along with Charlene's plans, joined her cabal, her political maneuvering to ultimately do good for the Vietnamese, the lepers, for anyone who needed something.

While Tricia wanted to blend in with the other wives, wanted to be a good wife and help her husband's corporate career, she was introduced to real life by Charlene. 

The book starts with Tricia is telling her story to Charlene's daughter Rainey, some fifty years after they were in Vietnam.  They had gotten in touch again through the sorting of old letters kept over the decades.  But as the narrative went on it seemed like 1963 as the present.

I liked this part, I can relate:

"Long ago went thought the winnowing of things - clothes and books and papers, excess kitchen gadgets, knickknacks, so many souvenirs: the Saigon souvenirs, and the Paris souvenirs, London, Ireland, San Francisco -...."   it was a collection given to Tricia by family and some she'd collected herself. One by one being disposed of. 

Again, I felt like I was reading letters from a memoir.

This is my second book to read along with JoAnn at Gulfside Musing and it was a blast to compare notes as we read along.  Great book for a book club discussion.

Linking up with Deb at Readerbuzz for Sunday Salon

The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring and The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher

Two books - one very good and one surprisingly bad.

The Road to Dalton

This story had me captivated by the poetic and descriptive writing.  My complaint - I wanted the story to continue! The residents of Dalton Maine each have their own stories with chapters devoted to their secrets, fears and loves. 

Trudy and Richard Haskell are central characters and appear in other stories as "supporting cast".  Richard is the town doctor in this small town.  He is good at his profession and very caring but he never wanted to be a doctor.  His father was a doctor and it was expected he'd fill that void when dad retired.  Richard wanted to build bridges.

His wife Trudy is the town librarian and falls in love with her best friend Bev. 

Rose is a lovely young woman who is abused by Tommy, the father of her two children.  She hides her bruises, makes excuses and hopes for a better life. Tommy is piece of work.

Nate and Bridget's story, well I won't give the spoilers on that but the passages about Bridget's train of thought midway through had me captivated. The writing here is so real.

There are many other characters and I very much enjoyed this slice of life in the little town of Dalton.  Looking forward to more by Shannon Bowring. 5 stars. 

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The Empty House

Coming Home and The Shell Seekers set a very high bar for Rosamunde Pilcher novels.  While I didn't expect any of her other work might reach the epic length or sweeping writing style, this book was a disappointment. Honestly, I made myself finish it then scratched my head thinking, WTF.

Virginia Keile is a 27 year old widow.  She is boring, self absorbed and a poor mother.  Not an intentionally cruel mother to her two young children, rather negligent to their needs. Virginia has lost her husband but her young children also experienced loss as they are now without their father.  So what does she do?  She leaves Scotland and heads to Cornwall to stay with a friend of her mother's while pining over "the man who got away" just prior to her marriage.

No please, don't comfort your children.  Keep your head in the clouds and day dream about a rude man who you wished you had married instead.  The ending seemed rushed and unrealistic, as if a deadline had come up and Pilcher thought - better wrap this up and get it to print!

I am a huge fan of Rosamunde Pilcher so it would be disingenuous of me to say how much I loved this book, just passing it off as her off her game.  Loved the setting but not the story. 2 stars

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Book "travel" took me to Maine, Cornwall and Scotland this time.

Sharing with Joy's Book Blog for British Isles Friday.

I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story by Rick Bragg

While I was browsing the nonfiction section at the library I saw this book on the shelf, thought about how long ago Jessica Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital.   Back in 2003 we had tv feed and remember  when breaking news interrupted the broadcast to report the rescue.

The story at the time reported Lynch's fierce fighting, her capture and the dramatic rescue by our elite military forces.  In this book Lynch sets the record straight about how her injuries occurred. She dispelled the stories which called her the "Rambo of the hills of West Virginia" when in fact, she never fired her gun as it jammed.

She was gravely injured by Iraqis and it's amazing she survived at all.

From the book:  "Medical records show what happened in the three hours missing from Jessie‘s memory. Her right arm was shattered between her shoulder and her elbow, a compound fracture, slivers of bone through muscles, nerves and skin, leaving her right hand useless. Her spine was fractured in two places causing nerve damage. This left her unable to control her kidneys and bowels. Her left leg was broken into pieces above and below the knee. Also compound fracture and splintered bone that made a mess of the nerves, and left her without feeling in the limb. "

And yet there was still more damage, both physically and mentally. It wasn't known if she suffered the beatings from rifle butts and kicking before or after she was raped, nor clear why she alone was not killed immediately.  Theory is she was a blonde green eyed female which could be used for propaganda purposes.

At the hospital she was taken care of best they could with the equipment and supplies they possessed.  She wouldn't eat anything but crackers and juice, and only if they opened it in front of her, for fear of being drugged and unable to fight to save her leg.  At one point the doctors wanted to amputate a leg as it was so badly damaged.

Jessica Lynch weighed 76 pounds by the time she was rescued.  Had she been left any longer she would have certainly died, despite the medical attention from kind medical staff.

Lynch did not know the narrative the government released to the news agencies.  

This is a well written book and I'm glad I picked it up.

The March book wrap up

Lovely Spring flowers around our place....

Blink your eye and it's April.  As Gilmour sang  in Time,  "then one day you'll find, ten years have got behind you..."

That's the truth.  Time goes so fast.  Since bringing this site back to life I updated on my February books here. This post is is a roundup of my March books.  Then I'll be on track with some sort of schedule that suits me.

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In March I finished the second book in the Cormac Reilly series by Dervla McTiernan.  I liked the first book, The Ruin, better than this second one - The Scholar. There are a few more to go before I am fully caught up.  If you like police procedurals this would be a good one for you, set in Galway Ireland.

Also read in March:  The Women by Kristin Hannah and Three by Valérie Perrin.

Three:  In 1986 three young children meet in school and become inseparable. They are all ten years of age and come from different home lives. Etienne, Nina and Adrian. They hold hands all the time, they support each other, assist with school work and personal issues. You can't imagine these three ever having a falling out.

The story is told in flashbacks and in great detail. By the time they are ready to graduate school and move on to university in Paris, the relationships are as strong as ever, even if there are a few secrets between the three. Then a fallout. A big one.

In 2017 a car is pulled from the water with a body inside. There is much speculation about a young lady missing for years - could she be in that car? As you go back and forth between time periods, reading about the very descriptive aspects of their lives, I found myself very supportive of some characters and almost despising another. It's a slow read but the last several chapters have revelations I never thought about. Loyalty, betrayal, love and forgiveness are the themes.

You don't know who the narrator is in this book until the end.  Then things fell into place.

This is the second book I have read by Perrin, translated by Hildegard Serle, and I will say I enjoyed Fresh Water for Flowers a bit more. She is an incredible author and I have already preordered her newest - Forgotten on Sunday.

March book travel took me to Vietnam, France, Ireland and California.  That's it for the March round up

 Looking forward to good reading this month.  Hope life is good for you all :-)

Sharing with Joy's Book Blog for British Isles Friday. and Reader Buzz for Sunday Salon.

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