Nancy's Reviews > Absolution

I have long been a fan of Alice McDermott. Absolution is a masterpiece. What more can I say? This is a novel the world needs, now, and ever. I loved these characters as they endeavored to heal a broken world by doing all the good they can in the limited ways they could.

Patricia was a young wife when she and her husband arrived in Saigon in 1963. She appears conventional and her values are traditional; she wants to be a good helpmate to her husband and longs to be a mother. But she has been drawn to more radical women.

Her friend in youth was impelled by her slave-owning roots to become involved in Civil Rights activism in the South. Her new friend Charlene, a wife and mother living in Saigon, brashly breaks the rules to raise money for charitable acts, taking gifts to civilians in the hospital and making new clothes for those in the leper colony. They are helped by Dominic, a young soldier with a wife and child. He shares his great love by volunteering at the hospital.

In old age, Patricia is contacted by Charlene’s daughter. Patricia shares her story, and learns the story of her old friend and her continuing acts of radical love, and also of Dominic whose goodness persisted until the end and whose story moved me to tears.

Barbie dolls, The Kennedys in the White House, Librium for housewives, men treating their wives like children, ignoring the poverty of Viet Nam, American’s anti-communism idealization justifying our involvement in Viet Nam, vividly renders the era. A more innocent time, in terms of ignorance and acceptance of the status quo. Patricia sees the burns on children, unaware they are napalm burns. Her husband believes that Buddhist protesters self-immolating were Communist infiltrators.

Charlene is a memorable character, angry and rebellious, beautiful and sophisticated, a woman Patricia is warned about. Her plans for doing good are not always well thought out and not always successful. But she insists on acting, on doing something, anything, for the great sin is to ignore the pain of the world.

In a year when I have read so many stunningly good books, this one rates at the top of my list of favorites. For its story telling and characters and for its insight and message and emotional and intellectual impact.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.