Available:*
Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | HAN | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
"Women can be heroes, too." When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on 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 choice for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.
Author Notes
Kristin Hannah was born in Southern California in September 1960. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in an advertising agency and practiced law in Seattle.
Hannah and her mom began writing a novel together when her mother was suffering from cancer. When her mother died, she put the draft away and continued to practice law. While pregnant with her son, and on bed rest, she took out the draft that she and her mother had written and began to write in earnest. Her draft was done by the time she gave birth. In 1990, she became a published writer and has been writing ever since.
She has won numerous awards including the Golden Heart, the Maggie and 1996 National Reader's Choice award. In 2004, she won the Rita Award for Best Novel: Between Sisters. Her title Winter Garden made the New York Times Bestseller List for 2011. Many of Hannah's other titles have made the New York Times Bestsellers List since then including: Night Road, Home Again, Home Front, Fly Away, The Nightingale, Comfort and Joy, True Colours, and The Great Alone. She has written a series entitled Girls of Firefly Lane which includes the books, Firefly Lane, and Fly Away.
Two of her books are being made into feature films, The Nightingale, and Home Front.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hannah's emotionally charged page-turner (after The Four Winds) centers on a young nurse whose life is changed by the Vietnam War. Before Frankie McGrath begins basic training for the Army in 1966, her older brother Finley is killed in action. Frankie excels as a surgical nurse in Vietnam and becomes close with fellow nurses Ethel and Barb. After Ethel's tour ends, Frankie and Barb gets assigned to the base at Pleiku, near the Cambodian border, where some of the heaviest fighting occurs. There, she reunites with Navy officer Rye Walsh, Finley's best friend, and they become lovers. When Frankie returns to the U.S., she's met with indifference for her service from her parents, who are still grieving her brother's death, and disdain from people who oppose the war. She leans on alcohol and drugs while struggling to acclimate to civilian life. Though the situations and dialogue can feel contrived (Rye, after announcing he's re-upping, says to Frankie at the close of a chapter, "I'm not leaving my girl"), Hannah's depictions of Frankie tending to wounded soldiers are urgent and eye-opening, and a reunion of the three nurses for Frankie's benefit is poignantly told. Fans of women's historicals will enjoy this magnetic wartime story. Agent: Andrea Cirillo, Jane Rotrosen Agency (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
A young woman's experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life. When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances "Frankie" McGrath's older brother--"a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften"--who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it's a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that's impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers' clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother's best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You'll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending--while it's against all the odds, you'll see it coming from a mile away. A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Frankie McGrath is just 20 when she enlists in the army to go to Vietnam as a nurse in 1965, planning to follow in the footsteps of her older brother, Finley. Frankie's parents are dismayed by her decision, even more so once they get the horrible news that Finley has been killed in action. Frankie deploys to Vietnam and is quickly overwhelmed by the horrors of war, but with the help of two new friends, Barb and Ethel, and a handsome doctor, Jamie, she adjusts to the rigors of nursing in a war zone. Her attraction to Jamie is stymied by complications, then she finds love with her brother's best friend, a charming pilot named Rye. When Frankie's service comes to an end, she is distressed when she returns to the States to find that Vietnam vets are not lauded as heroes and that many vets don't acknowledge the service of military women. As she grapples with PTSD and finds her place in antiwar protests, Frankie is dealt a terrible blow. Hannah (The Four Winds, 2021) continues her winning streak of compelling historical novels, capturing the tumultuous atmosphere of the 1960s and '70s in a moving, gripping tale that pays tribute to the under-appreciated skill and courage of combat nurses.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hannah's popularity ensures enormous interest in each new novel, and the unusual historical context and focus of this one will stir up additional curiosity.
