My library has a three week check out for books, and I am now well past the midway mark until that looming due date (the holds list is remaining at a steady 440 or so people waiting), but I am not quite at the midway mark of Kristin Hannah's The Women. I am very much enjoying the story and writing and can see why she is such a popular writer as she is a very good storyteller. However, I need to step up my game this weekend (and really the book does read pretty fast), as I don't want to hold on to the book too far past that due date.
Along with the novel, I requested the first season of China Beach through interlibrary loan (I love libraries!). Once again, I only have a two week window to get through six episodes plus the pilot. It is interesting to have visuals to go along with my reading and will see how the two compare.
I have been thinking a lot about this period and my curiosity, of course (this happens to me a lot), has extended to other stories. I have been adding to a list of other books about the period, though have broadened things a bit from 'women nurses in Vietnam' to other stories set there (though with women as more of the focus) as well as related stories peripherally set in that era. So here is a mishmash of a list of books (fiction and nonfiction) with a very few movies thrown in. Most of these are just books I have come across that sound interesting, but I admit I have not read most of them--they are books that I found in my library catalog or that struck me as books I want to try and look for and peruse/read. I am happy to add to the list if other suggestions are made!
Novels:
A Catalog of Birds, Laura Harrington
In Country, Bobbie Ann Mason
Absolution, Alice McDermott
Haven Point, Vrginia Hume
Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam, Susan O'Neill (written by a nurse who served there).
Ru: A Novel, Kim Thuy
If I Had Two Lives, Abbigail N. Rosewood
Spearfield's Daughter, Jon Cleary
Signal Flame, Andrew Krivak
Between the Battles, Helen Nolan (this is fiction, but it appears to be based on her experiences there).
Nonfiction:
Close-Up on War: The story of Pioneering Photojournalist Catherine Leroy in Vietnam, Mary Cronk Farell
War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam, Denby Fawcett
Girls Don't: A Woman's War in Vietnam, Inette Miller
Round Eyes: An American Nurse in Vietnam, Diane Klutz
Officer, Nurse, Woman: The Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War, Kara Dixon Vuic
Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam, Lynda Van Devanter
Donut Dolly: An American Red Cross Girl's War in Vietnam, Joann Puffer Kotcher
Movies:
I know there are many movies about the war, but these are two that I have seen and really loved and were memorable to me.
Coming Home (1978)
Dogfight (1991)
I know there has been a LOT of books written about the war, many classics of literature (Tim O'Brien is a favorite and his The Things They Carried is literally one of the best books I have ever read), so this very brief list is a mere pebble drop into an ocean. I hope I can add more books in the future (and hope to read much more about women in this era).
Happy weekend everyone.
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Edited (4/4/24)
Books mentioned in Kristin Hannah's acknowledgements section in her book The Women:
Healing Wounds, Diane Carlson Evans with Bob Welch
American Daughter Gone to War, Winnie Smith
Home Before Morning, Lynda Van Devanter
Women in Vietnam: The Oral History, Ron Steinman
A Piece of My Heart, Keith Walker
Also:
After the Hero's Welcome, Dorothy H. McDaniel
The League of Wives, Heath Hardage Lee
In Love and War, Jim and Sybil Stockdale
The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Andrew E. Hunt