The Women By Kristin Hannah

‘The Women’ is the latest book by Kristin Hannah.

When twenty-year-old nursing student, Frances “Frankie” McGrath, hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on California’s idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different path for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurses Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the young men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed America. Frankie will also discover the true value of female friendship and the heartbreak that love can cause.

An era that I don’t know much about is the Vietnam War, so when I got the chance to read ‘The Women’ for my bookclub, I was intrigued to find out more and this book certainly provided a dramatic and harsh insight into the terrible war and its consequences during and after it ended.

The story is seen through the narrative of Frances, a young woman who after the death of her brother Finlay decides to follow in his footsteps and go to war and volunteer in the hospitals. It’s there that she’s exposed to horrific scenes of carnage, despair and conflict. Whilst Frankie tends to the injured, she makes friends with Ethel and Barb, 2 other nurses who take the young women under their wings and help her toughen up in the horrendous conditions. After spending a tour together, the women become firm friends and Ethel and Barb are always there for Frankie when things go wrong. When she returns home, Frankie finds that she is unable to talk about the things she witnessed as well as the PTSD she has suffered as her parents’ told society that she went away to Florence, and they refuse to talk about the sights she saw. Frankie finds it difficult to adjust to the new life and finds solace in alcohol as it helps her with the flash backs and night terrors and cope with people who believe a nurse didn’t witness combat so she couldn’t be affected that badly.

This story is a hard one, although it’s called ‘The Women’, the narrative is solely from Frankie, as she is the voice of the thousands of nurses who were not acknowledged for their work during the Vietnam War and it does make for frustrating and upsetting reading how much Frankie is denied by others who argue that because she was not on the frontline, then she wasn’t at war.

Frankie is an interesting character whose actions were mainly stemmed by the men in her life, going to war because of her brother, she’s strong willed but unfortunately, she’s attracted to the wrong men and her life is filled with heartache when the man that she loved called Rye is called in combat and she finds it hard to move on without him. Although PTSD wasn’t recognised back then, it’s obvious that Frankie was deeply affected by what she was exposed to, not only the soldiers she tended to but the innocent villagers that were caught up in the middle of it all.

This was the first book that I’ve read by Kristin Hannah, and I thought it to be a beautifully written and fantastically researched story. The vivid descriptions of the war, the horror of the conditions and the treatment of people made for gripping, sad and upsetting reading.

A story of love, loss and recognition, ‘The Women’ is a powerfully written story that stays with the reader long after they’ve reached the final page.

You can buy ‘The Women’ from Amazon and is available to buy from good bookshops.