American women - American wives - have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. Tricia is a shy newlywed, married to a rising attorney on loan to navy intelligence. Charlene is a practiced corporate spouse and mother of three, a beauty and a bully. In Saigon in 1963, the two women form a wary alliance as they balance the era's mandate to be "helpmeets" to their ambitious husbands...

"My book follows the lives of the men of two American infantry platoons, a three-man North Vietnamese army combat cell and the staff of a small surgical hospital. Along the way, I explore the characters' backgrounds and cultures, training, motivations and the challenges faced by each in detail. I give a full picture of what serving in Vietnam was like for those caught up in it."--Back cover.

A novel that follows an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men.