Ken Lindholm's Reviews > Absolution

Absolution was on many “year’s best books”, and I very much enjoyed author Alice McDermott’s previous novel Ninth Hour. In Absolution, she writes about Tricia, the wife of an American officer based in Saigon, Vietnam. The book is written primarily from Tricia’s perspective many years later, in the form of a lengthy letter to Rainey, the daughter of another central character Charlene.

McDermott sets the Vietnamese portion of the book during the Kennedy administration, before the war escalates in the mid and late sixties. Here, the conflict is not front and center, but more the rumbling in the background. In this way, it does not upstage McDermott’s theme of making the world better, in small ways. This theme is prominent with Charlene, but also echoed throughout. I especially enjoyed a reference to the Hebrew concept of “tikkun olam” - efforts to “repair the world”.

I found McDermott’s novel a very worthwhile uplifting story rather than a simple period piece - especially relevant in today’s environment of discord.