Absolution’ by Alice McDermott    (2023) – 324 pages

Since this novel has such a highfalutin title, let’s start with a definition for ‘Absolution’.

Absolution : act of absolving; a freeing from blame or guilt; release from consequences, obligations, or penalties.; forgiveness

Sadly, there is no absolution for what the United States did in and to Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

‘Absolution’ is almost entirely about the wives who went with their husbands to Saigon, South Vietnam during the early 1960s, the Kennedy era. This was the early optimistic stage of United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The husbands were there as military officers, advisors, and contractors. The husbands are nearly extraneous to the ‘Absolution’ story. This is about the women. I rather admire Alice McDermott for sticking with the part of the story she would be most familiar with, how these women interact.

“It was another inborn talent of these privileged girls: they were irresistible, much as you hated them.”

The two main characters are the young wife Patricia who is in Saigon with her engineer husband and Charlene who is somewhat older and in Saigon with her entire family. Charlene is a do-gooder who wants to do good for the Vietnamese people. She comes up with all these projects to raise money, and Patricia, being a novice wife, follows along. One of Charlene’s projects is ‘Saigon Barbie’, dressing Barbie dolls in Vietnamese clothes. Saigon Barbie is quite popular with the American families, even the ones back home. It’s a big seller. She puts her Vietnamese maid to work sewing these outfits for the Barbie dolls.

These American women staying in Vietnam just loved the Vietnamese women, especially the ones working as servants for them.

Later Charlene takes Patricia to a leper colony run by Catholic nuns. Doing good in a leper colony is a much larger, scarier project than Saigon Barbie.

“You ladies got the lepers laughing, I’m talking lepers here. Laughing. We all heard it. Laughing lepers. Man.” He shook his head. “There should be some kind of medal for that. From the Vatican. From Albert Schweitzer It’s a frigging miracle.”

Meanwhile Patricia and her husband are trying without success to start a family. Charlene has three children, seemingly with little effort. Charlene’s middle daughter is an eight year-old called Rainey. The novel is addressed to the daughter Rainey, presumably written by Patricia many years after the events in ‘Absolution’ have taken place.

I suppose the title of this novel ‘Absolution’ is to be interpreted in an ironic sense.

Grade :   B+