The One About the Men

(fictional and otherwise WARNING: BOOK SPOILERS)

I’ve decided to take on this topic because the last 3 books I’ve consumed are chock full of Men Behaving Badly, NOT as you might think, because I’m mad at men, generally, or any one man, in particular. Not even Don.

So just relax, don’t worry. I’m not mad at you but I do wish to explore how the men in my most recent read/listens are very much super not good people and how that contributes to the growth of the female MCs (main characters). It’s a long-ish review of 3 books in other words which is kinda sorta supposed to be the point of this here substack. I will no doubt veer off topic at some point but that’s the fun of anything Liz writes.

To wit…

First up: The Women, by Kristen Hannah, beloved author of a metric ton of women-centric novels. I’ve read several of them, including the unequal friends one (Firefly Lane), the semi-autobiographical Alaska one (The Great Alone), the sister one (Between Sisters), and the super famous WW2 one (The Nightingale).

The Women is set in an era that I have not read much about—the Vietnam War and the decades just before and after it. Female MC Francis “Frankie” McGrath is the daughter of a man who is obsessed with heroism—but more specifically male heroism. So much so he has an entire wall of photos of family heroes (all men) in the large house where she and her brother grow up in Southern California. Like many of us females, Frankie wanted to make sure her dad loved her. Nothing wrong with that. But Frankie decides that this will entail her getting her own photo up on the hero’s wall that isn’t one of her in a white dress, marrying one of the heroes. After an inspiring chat about "who can be a hero” with a young man who will later define everything she believes about herself while they’re at a party celebrating her brother’s departure for the war in Vietnam (back when such things were celebrated), she goes and enlists as a nurse with the Army.

Things go about as well as you might expect for a young, innocent, virginal gal once she sets foot in her first MASH unit in country. The book pulls no punches about the horrors of that war, and how things deteriorate and devolve into chaos both there and back home in the U.S. It’s one of my favorite things about a Kristen Hannah book—her attention to details, no matter how unromantic.

Also, like most/many books by this author, there are several romantic threads and storylines. But mistake this for a historical war romance at your peril. Frankie falls for a married surgeon but steadfastly refuses to do anything about it until he heads home and his plane is shot down. Then she turns around and falls for that original guy who inspired her to join up. He’s a hot shot helicopter pilot who breaks off his engagement in order to meet her strict standards, and they have a few pleasant months together, despite the war’s increasing danger.

She goes home, finds out her beloved father was so ashamed of her joining up and trying to be a hero he’s lied to his country club pals about her (claims she was studying abroad) and she runs face first into a serious bout of PTSD. Frankly, the paragraphs of her trying to re-normalize herself after seeing what she’d seen while in the midst of a horrific war were some of the best ones for me as a reader. The book deals directly with PTSD, addiction to various things including cigarettes, gin, and “mother’s little helpers.” Frankie is, in a combined word, a Hot Mess (and a half, really).

When she realizes that the dude who gave her the pep talk, and then deflowered her after claiming he’d called off his engagement is actually married and the father of a little girl, all her sympathy for his plight as a former prisoner of war and resident of the Hannoi Hilton vanishes. That is, until she gets herself re-obsessed with him. This man has the unmitigated GALL to lie to her repeatedly just to keep her on the hook, and himself between her legs. Ugh. If I yelled “NO FRANKIE DON’T” one more time while listening to the stellar narration by the world-renowned Julia Whelan, I’m pretty sure the people around me would slap my earbuds out of my ears and tell me to stop torturing myself.

No lie, I had emotional PTSD after finishing it. It’s brutal, on a lot of levels. The war of course, and Frankie’s various attempts at reintegrating in to a world that refuses to even acknowledge her work and sacrifices were hard enough, (“there were no women in Vietnam?” WTF?) But toss in her getting her heart stomped by a lying a-hole of a flyboy repeatedly, while taking a pass on the Nice Guy who knocks her up and tries to marry her….well, thankfully it ends on a high note. Frankie ends up becoming a therapist, specializing in women with PTSD and when she goes to see the unveiling of the Vietnam Memorial in DC, she reunites with the first man she truly loved who, it turns out, did not die when his plane was shot down.

There are times when Frankie’s naïveté and somewhat childish stubbornness are grating, but that’s what makes Kristen Hannah books so great, at least for me. She writes real people. And despite herself, Frankie becomes the woman she becomes because of the men who try and thwart her awesomeness—from her father (who comes around, thank the lord), to the flyboy.

5 thumbs up all around

Next, let’s take ourselves to early 1900s China, for The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan, narrated by Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, and Amy Tan herself. This is a slightly older book (2013) and a long one (almost 25 hours so you KNOW I love that!) but it’s one of Ms. Tan’s best sweeping sagas about a woman who opens the book by saying: “When I was seven, I knew exactly who I was.”

Violet is a half Chinese, half American girl living her mother’s famous courtesan house in Shanghai. Not an unusual start for an Amy Tan book. I’ve read or listened to Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Bonesetter’s Daughter. Trust me when I say that I am ever grateful that foot binding was never a part of my life, thanks to the in depth knowledge I obtained while reading some of these books.

Violet’s life is an easy one—running around a Class A courtesan house, learning the ins and outs of how men are managed by these women, learning a little more than she perhaps should at a young age about sex, but that would be a work hazard at the Hidden Jade Path. But when things go sideways and her mother is duped by a man pretending to love her and heads to San Francisco thinking Violet is joining her on the ship, let’s say that Violet’s life officially takes a drastic 360 degree turn. She’s sold (literally) to another courtesan house and finds herself as the rare “Eurasian” beauty in their “garden of flowers,” and her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

From that day on, after she falls deeply in love with the well-meaning but honestly unable to commit guy who deflowers her, she finds herself at odds with her own nature (smart, independent, outspoken) and her apparent place in the world (as subservient, submissive, vulnerable to abuse). It’s a tough story, and at one or more points I’ve hollered at her (and her mother, whose backstory is also told by way of absolving her of leaving Violet behind, kinda) the same way I did Frankie. And it was at one of those points when I thought “A HA! A substack topic that allows me to write a substack AND review a few books.”

Because there are very few redeeming men in this book. Very few indeed. And Violet is brought low again and again because of her necessary dependence on them. But thankfully, the story is ultimately about a mother daughter one, of Lucia and Violet Minturn, both of whom are adventurous to the point of reckless, learning life’s lessons over and over again, simply by following their hearts.

5 thumbs up listen. Highly reccommend.

Finally, let’s talk a little bit about The Teacher, by Freida McFadden, the Queen of the Quick n’ Dirty Domestic Thriller (she’s my queen, anyways). This book was…not my favorite of hers. But it definitely contains the kernel of my recent obsession (or so it would seem) with Men Being Jerks to the Women Who Care About them. Granted, as in most McFadden books, the women are not exactly perfect either. But in this book, the female MC’s husband is the dictionary definition level horror show: a handsome and charismatic high school English teacher (dreamy) who is a predator of the highest order (icky) and also an extreme gaslighter with his wife. Granted her way of dealing with it is…unique (see: shoe obsession that provides the book with a super cheesy/ very silly twist at the end). But she is put in the worst possible position thanks to her wasted space of a husband, while he lies his way through various “relationships” (aka “statutory rape situations”) with various girls who look up to him.

Cue the Extreme Squick Factor plus a bonus somewhat unbelievable escape and revenge scene.

I’m giving this book 3 thumbs up. I read it vs. listening so I have no narration opinion but if you want to give a McFadden book a try, go for The Housemaid!

Men.

Can’t Live with ‘em.

Pass the Beer Nuts. (with apologies to Norm)

That’s it for now….more soon on how my about face from romance into domestic thriller -dom has both sold me more books than ever, but has also giving me extreme existential crisis.

xoxo

Liz