Few playwrights engage with the concept of the passing of time better than Thornton Wilder. Published in 1931, The Long Christmas Dinner is a moving play about time’s transitory nature. The story spans ninety years and shows how generations of one family evolve while staying the same over decades of Christmas dinners. The short but powerful drama is less than 30 pages in written form and less than an hour when performed. Wilder seems to remind readers that though the days can seem dull, the cumulation of life’s mundane moments is sacred and should be savored.

The story begins in 1875 and ends in 1975. There is one continuous stream of conversation between members of the Bayard family around the dining room table of their Midwest home. Throughout the play, new babies and spouses arrive at the Christmas dinner from stage left while those who die leave on stage right. The first, Mother Bayard, speaks about crossing the Mississippi River on a newly made raft and the presence of Indians on the land where their new house sits. By 1975, her great-grandchildren discussed how the surrounding factories emit too much soot.

Bayard family members sometimes aren’t aware that they are repeating the language and stories of past generations. It is not that the dialogue is that interesting; it is not. There are comments about the wine, the turkey, or the ice outside. And yet, it is not any one Christmas dinner that offers insightful dialogue or observations, but the cumulation of Christmas dinners is unforgettable. Time keeps passing; young people are born and old people die. Wilder seems to be saying - whether or not you realize it - time is going by quicker than you know so appreciate your lives. Though seeing the play performed is preferred, The Long Christmas Dinner, in whatever form, crescendos to a finale of transcendence. 4.5/5

Ann Napolitano’s warm, sad and tender novel Hello Beautiful is an absorbing exploration of family dynamics. The novel is thoughtful and perceptive. Napolitano beautifully depicts the complexity of family loyalty. Love can both support and constrain individual choices. Though the novel stands alone, echoes of Little Women add another dimension to this story of four sisters whose relationships change when the oldest sister falls in love. Napolitano’s focus on the interior lives of her characters gives this book its depth.

Willian Waters and Julia Padavano, the oldest of four sisters, met and fell in love when they were students at Northwestern University. William grew up on the East Coast, an isolated and lonely boy. His older sister died soon after his birth. His parent’s grief consumes them and they ignore William, a trauma he wrestles with later in the novel. William’s only joy is playing basketball. Upon arriving at Northwestern on an athletic scholarship, his life expands when he meets Julia’s family: her parents, Charlie and Rose, and her three sisters, Sylvie, Cecelia, and Emeline. William and Julia marry quickly, and William finally feels the love and camaraderie of a warm and supportive family.

Napolitano shows the complicated tension between loyalty to family versus loyalty to self. The four Padavano sisters love each other and are intertwined like strings in a rope. Yet William and Julia’s relationship sparks the unraveling of the family’s structure; a death in the family causes more pain. Reacting to their grief, each sister wants to pursue her dreams and desires, which conflict with the expectations of the others. The sisters love each other profoundly and make each other miserable. Relationships fray and conflicts emerge. Though I wish Napolitano had provided more dialogue so that readers could engage more fully with the changing dynamics, she succeeds in revealing the inner lives of the characters over decades. The novel deftly tackles issues of aging, alcoholism, betrayal and mental illness.

Napolitano understands that humans are not good or bad; they are complex. She has written a powerful novel about a family of individuals doing their best - based on who they are and what they have experienced. 4/5

When is helping others causing harm? And when harm is inflicted, even if the intention is benign, can individuals or nations admit their error? Alice McDermott’s beautiful new book Absolution explores the role of American women during the Vietnam War and America’s entanglement in that conflict. Elegant and insightful, McDermott explores the dynamic of paternalism as it relates to gender roles and countries.

Tricia Kelly, now in her 80s, is writing to her best friend’s daughter about their lives in Vietnam beginning in 1963. She states in the third sentence, “You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives.”

Tricia describes cocktail parties, garden parties, and the elaborate machinations required of women to dress properly as “helpmates” to their husbands. Like the other American wives, Tricia had come to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) with her engineer and attorney husband Peter. More than likely, Peter worked for the CIA, though Tricia did not know for sure. Like most wives in their social circle in Vietnam, Tricia was a capable college graduate, yet subservient to her husband. The wives didn’t question their marriage roles or the reasons their husbands had brought them to Vietnam.

Tricia is rapidly befriended by a charismatic woman named Charlene. Charlene is as boisterous and bold as Tricia is quiet and shy. “Charlene had her fingers in everyone’s lives.” She, too, is treated as the charge of her husband, but she is determined to use her abilities to help Vietnamese in need. Charlene believes she is helping Tricia when she asks Tricia to join her in a charitable activity. Tricia didn’t seek Charlene’s help nor did Tricia wish to participate in Charlene’s philanthropy. And yet Tricia helps Charlene. This power dynamic in their friendship echoes the relationship between the United States and Vietnam.

Tricia acknowledges, in hindsight, the tragedy of America’s involvement in Vietnam and even feels a bit of humiliation for being a “helpmate” to a husband who contributed to the horrific violence that dominated Vietnam for years. Thanks to the passing of time and the writing of this letter, Tricia better understands what happened there and feels a kind of absolution by writing about that time.

Alice McDermott’s prose is steady and clear. She touches deftly on multiple themes, including history, hubris, religion, and righteousness. The Vietnam War is on the periphery of the story while the central theme is how the men in the 1960s infantilized their wives, and their wives acquiesced to this dynamic because the broader culture reinforced it. Absolution adds an important new dimension to the literature of the Vietnam War. 4/5