Podcast
Fresh Air
It was described as a novel about a shy newlywed in 1963 Vietnam, exploring themes of charity and the growing U.S. involvement in the war.
Absolution by Alice McDermott tells the story of Trisha, a shy newlywed in 1963 who arrives in Vietnam with her husband, an engineer on loan to Navy intelligence, and meets Charlene, a strawberryblond...
— Episode: Best Of: Colman Domingo On 'Rustin' / Co...
Episode: Best Of: Colman Domingo On 'Rustin' / Cord Jeffers...
It was described as a novel about a shy newlywed in 1963 Vietnam, exploring themes of charity and the growing U.S. involvement in the war.
Absolution by Alice McDermott tells the story of Trisha, a shy newlywed in 1963 who arrives in Vietnam with her husband, an engineer on loan to Navy intelligence, and meets Charlene, a strawberryblonde dynamo who conscripts her into a dogooders' army.
Episode: Breaking The Menstruation Taboo
McDermott's novel follows a newlywed Vietnamese nurse who meets a charismatic woman, exploring themes of charity and war. It was highlighted for its nuanced storytelling.
Absolution by Alice McDermott tells the story of Tricia, a shy newlywed in 1963 who arrives in Vietnam with her husband, an engineer on loan to Navy Intelligence.
Episode: How A Black Socialite Raised Millions For Civil Ri...
Alice McDermott's ninth novel was presented as a Vietnamset story that examines humility on both personal and national levels.
Alice McDermott, who won the National Book Award for her 1997 novel, Charming Billy, has come out with her ninth novel. It's called Absolution, and our book critic Maureen Corrigan says it leaves the old neighborhood far behind.
Humility is the one virtue you wouldn't expect Alice McDermott's characters would need to learn. Her characters are almost always Irish-American, Catholic, working class... but in McDermott's new novel, Absolution, humility, both on an individual and a national level, is the virtue that's in catastrophically short supply.
Absolution takes the form of memories shared between two American women some 60 years after they left Saigon, transporting McDermott's signature characters to Vietnam circa 1963.