Kristin Hannah was in elementary and middle school during the Vietnam War. The father of one of her close girlfriends was a pilot whose plane was shot down, and Hannah started wearing his POW bracelet.
The experience had a lasting impact on Hannah. More than five decades later, she has written “The Women,” a novel based on the war and the little-known stories of the more than 10,000 women who served as nurses. They came home — as did the male veterans — to a country that alternately dismissed them and denigrated them for their service.
“It was the era of having three TV channels and even as a kid I was aware of the protests and divisions in the country over the war,” Hannah said in a phone interview.
The author of more than 20 novels — including 2017’s bestselling “The Nightingale” — Hannah will be in Denver on Monday, Feb. 12, for Pen & Podium, the sold-out lecture series presented by The Denver Post Community Foundation. Prior to her national tour promoting “The Women,” Hannah talked about the book and her career. The interview has been condensed.
Q: What drew you to the topic of Vietnam and the women who served in the war? And why write about it now?
A: It hit very close to me because my friend’s dad never did come home and it all felt very important. I have written about veterans before and am interested in making sure we talk about it and care for them after they have given this kind of sacrifice.
When I originally had the idea and pitched it to my editor in 1997, it was a time when no one wanted to hear about Vietnam. We went into lockdown in 2020 and I was in Seattle on an island without a lot of stuff to do. I saw medical personnel being overworked and under-appreciated. The country was divided again and It felt like it was time to write it.
Q: Your books focus on women’s stories of courage, and their relationships. Why is that central to your work?
A: I’m drawn to stories about women’s lost histories or where the women’s places in history have been forgotten, overlooked or marginalized. It was pretty easy to say that we didn’t know the role women nurses played in the Vietnam War, so that was my starting point. It was a way to do this era and war with a very narrow focus. It allowed me to keep my message front and center.
Q: What surprised you in doing research for the book?
A: I dove into a lot of research and was lucky that there are phenomenal memoirs from nurses I could read. I was ultimately able to talk to female nurses and a helicopter pilot. What was most surprising was that I kept reading that these women upon coming home would try to be identified and acknowledged (for their service) and would be denied by the Veterans Administration. They were ignored or dismissed. If you hadn’t been in combat, they didn’t think you experienced emotional and psychological impact. But the nurses saw the result of that combat. It was a time when we didn’t have the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Q: Among the Army veterans you met was Diane Carlson Evans, who was the founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation. How did she factor into the story?
A: She was invaluable as a source, helping me to be accurate. Last November, I went to [Washington], D.C., for the 30th anniversary of the memorial. Here were all of these female Vietnam vets with their husbands, kids and grandkids, telling stories. Watching these women come together again and seeing the laughing, crying and hugging made me feel so happy that the book could shine a light on their service while they are still here to read it.
Q: The book’s protagonist, Frankie McGrath, comes home emotionally wounded and unprepared for life as it existed in America in the Vietnam era. Her family tries to deny that she had even served and speaks little of her brother, who died early in the war and was the reason Frankie enlisted. Frankie also fell in love and had her heart broken while serving, and developed close relationships with other nurses who would stand by her when she returned. Why was all of this part of the story you wanted to tell?
A: I had her come home to different scenarios but wanted to write the story that felt most universal, like the memoirs I had read. The hardest part for them was being told over and over again to just forget it and try to be good, upright citizens. Yet they could not let go of this. They also came home as remarkable nurses but were treated as novices.
I’m a huge believer in the importance of female friendshipS. If you have a core friendship or group of friends that stick together through thick and thin, these are relationships that keep you afloat in life. These are young women just out of college, who don’t have a ton of experience. They are thrown into impossible, dangerous situations. Friendships forged under that kind of fire would be incredibly durable and lasting.
While there are love stories in the book, the great love story is the women’s friendships. They are soulmates in the way that women can be.
Q: Can you describe your evolution as a novelist from writing mass-market romance to historical fiction? Your editor said that with “The Nightingale” you became a literary novelist. Would you agree? Do you care about the distinction?
A: I’ve gone through changes over the three decades of this career. I started with what they call “women’s fiction” (even though there is no corollary for men). I write general historical fiction with female protagonists. I try to tell compelling important stories in a way that makes them impossible to put down, teach you something and, most importantly, create empathy. We live in a world where empathy is very needed.
Q: Your works have been transferred to the screen, specifically “Firefly Lane” for TV and “The Nightingale,” which is now becoming a movie. What has that process been like?
A: It’s an interesting and public thing. As a viewer, I loved watching “Firefly Lane” and its portrayal of female friendship. I loved the cast. Because of the show, I have noticed a lot of younger people reading my books.
Filming of “The Nightingale” was delayed by the writers and actors strikes in 2023. Hopefully, 2024 will be the year it will be filmed. I don’t expect it to be exactly like the book; I just hope it makes the points I wrote. Once you give up control, you have to trust the process. I think of it (this way): The film is theirs; the book was mine.
Q: What is your writing process like?
A: When I’m writing a novel, I’ll work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day; maybe not on the weekends. I’m either working at 100 miles per hour or not at all. If I can sit on a beach somewhere and read, that is how I refill the well. I spend so much time living in my head that I really love the in-between times when I can listen and read. I’ve gotten to the point where I zealously protect my downtime.
Suzanne S. Brown is a Denver-based writer and former features editor at The Denver Post.
