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Home Before Morning

4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 · rating details · 305 ratings · 38 reviews

"This incredible story, which plunges us immediately into the bloodiest aspects of the war, is also a suspenseful autobiography that will keep you chewing your fingernails to see if Van Devanter survives any of it at all. She proves herself a natural storyteller. . . . The most extraordinary part in this book is Van Devanter's plight after the war-her attempt to retrieve t...more "This incredible story, which plunges us immediately into the bloodiest aspects of the war, is also a suspenseful autobiography that will keep you chewing your fingernails to see if Van Devanter survives any of it at all. She proves herself a natural storyteller. . . . The most extraordinary part in this book is Van Devanter's plight after the war-her attempt to retrieve the love of her family, only to realize they don't want to see her slides, hear her stories; her assignment to menial duties at Walter Reed Army Hospital. . . . How Van Devanter survives all of this to become, incredibly, a stronger person for it is what makes her book so riveting."-San Francisco Chronicle

"An awesome, painfully honest look at war through a woman's eyes. Her letters home and startling images of life in a combat zone-surgeons fighting to save a Vietnamese baby wounded in utero, the ever-present stench of napalm-charred flesh, a beloved priest's gentle humor and appalling death, the casual heroism of her colleagues, a Vietnamese 'Papa-san' trying to talk his dead child back to life, a haunting snapshot dropped by a dying soldier with no face-tell the story of a young American's rude initiation to the best and the worst of humanity."-Washington Post

"Moving, powerful . . . a healing book."-Ms. Magazine

"This book reads like a diary: unguarded, heartfelt. . . . [It] is both moving and valu-able, for reminding us so vividly that war is indeed hell . . . and that its most tested heroes are the doctors and nurses who doggedly labor not just to save life, but also to keep their respect for it, even as their surviving patients are sent out, once more, unto the breach."-Harper's Magazine

"In Vietnam, reality hit fast: Van Devanter's plane was fired on when it landed in Saigon; and after three days of adjustment, she was assigned to the 71st Evacuation Hospital, a 'MASH-type facility' near the Cambodian border. There, the casualties, . . . the personal danger, the fatigue, the heat, rain, and mud, the harassment of officers enforcing petty regulations, and above all the meaninglessness of American involvement rapidly put an end to Van Devanter's blind patriotism, her innocence, and her youth. . . . Van Devanter brings us face to face with the toll that undeclared war took on its combatants."-Kirkus Reviews

"If you read only one work about Vietnam, make this the one. . . . This is the way it was, as seen through the eyes of an army second lieutenant when she was twenty-two. I believe her completely, because this reviewer remembers Vietnam the same way, when he was a nineteen-year-old Marine PFC."-Deseret Sentinel
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Paperback, 336 pages

Published August 1st 2001 by University of Massachusetts Press (first published 1983)

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Feb 23, 2013 Sandy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

thank you, Lynda, for writing this brutally frank and difficult book. It has been 40 years+ since the Vietnam War ended. I was just a child... protesting like so many millions of others against an unjust and undeclared war... and hating returning soldiers... not 'spitting' as she experienced, but vocally agreeing with those who did... seeing all of them as 'baby-killers' and personally responsible for Mai Lai.. I have long since acknowledged how wrong I was in that regard, how unjust and downrig...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

A sad story of an Army Nurse who assigned to the 71st Evac Hospital, Pleiku, Viet Nam during our undeclared war in that country. Is is a soldiers story told through the eyes of this young girl. A picture of the burned and mutilated boys who fought there, the civilians who were wounded as a result of combat, collateral casualties). Then her struggle with PTSD on her return to the "world." Finally how she finally came to terms with her year in Viet Nam and her work with the V.V.A. Viet Nam Veteran...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Paul Hamilton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Paul by: Nikki

Shelves: history, non-fiction, memoir

My wife has been pestering me to pick up Lynda Van Devanter's memoir of serving as a nurse in the Vietnam War for years. The thing is, I don't really like memoirs all that much. Too often they spend a third or more of the book going over the kinds of "start at the beginning" backstories which don't really add as much to the framing of the meat as the authors think. This is especially true of stories where either childhoods were especially harsh and difficult (nearly always highlighted in tales o...more My wife has been pestering me to pick up Lynda Van Devanter's memoir of serving as a nurse in the Vietnam War for years. The thing is, I don't really like memoirs all that much. Too often they spend a third or more of the book going over the kinds of "start at the beginning" backstories which don't really add as much to the framing of the meat as the authors think. This is especially true of stories where either childhoods were especially harsh and difficult (nearly always highlighted in tales of survival as the place the narrator learned how to never give up) or were more or less idyllic (usually setting up a grand disappointment or disenfranchisement later). It's rarely as simple as these narrative devices let on and they just sort of bore me, especially since I usually only care about the hook of a memoir, something the author can describe that I've not heard about before. I've heard plenty of stories of happy and sad childhoods. Spare me.

Home Before Morning isn't exempt from this memoir-itis, relying on the idyllic childhood context to contrast the horrors of war and show how the oppressive futility of trying to piece dying soldiers back together shattered her once peaceful little existence. Whatever else you may say about the meat of the book and the skillfulness of its crafting, the basic premise is hardly novel. That doesn't make it bad, I suppose, it just makes it familiar. I guess it's difficult to look at a book about a naive Catholic nursing student volunteering for a tour of duty from my lofty 21st century ivory tower, decorated as it is with all the dissecting literature, film and coursework of the past forty years and not say, "Well, jeez. What did you expect, lady?"

Still, Van Devanter managed to make a slow but effective incision in my post-irony viewpoint and drag me back to a time when patriotism wasn't just a jest adopted by people to serve a political purpose, when ideals weren't viewed with cynicism and suspicion wrought from too many disappointing years under questionable leadership. Home Before Morning shows, in a way, the birth of all that, chronicling at its best moments the death not of an individual's innocence, but of a nation's.

Some of Home Before Morning doesn't completely work. The last third of the book is devoted to Van Devanter's return to the States, chronicling her disenchantment with what she (and other vets) termed "The World." The World was unhappy with the war and for the most part shamefully took it out on the soldiers who, as Van Devanter points out, largely were as opposed to it as those who hadn't gone into the service. Some of this section is powerful, riveting and insightful but parts of it drag a bit as she describes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder faithfully but without near as much passion and impact as her tales from the one year in the 71st Evac. The choices of what to skim past (her marriage) and what to bog down in detail (her stint as a dialysis nurse) and mostly what to try to weave as a narrative thread aren't always the best. A key example for this is the recurring theme of the question that continues to plague her throughout the war and the aftermath: Why? For as often as Van Devanter asks the question, she never makes any serious attempt to answer it, even when some thoughtful introspection about it would be deeply appropriate like in the epilogue where she describes her return to Vietnam in 1982.

A couple of places where Home Before Morning really shines is in its depiction of the horrors of war through the lens not of the hyper-masculine killing machines in the infantry units (I'm thinking of works like Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket), but through the eyes of the sort of ironically necessary medical personnel who have to be on hand to try and undo the work of the warring soldiers on both sides. For some reason the idea that the trauma of war would seep into the lives of medics never really occurred to me, as if treating wounded soldiers was no more traumatic for hospital staff than the doctors and nurses working in a Stateside facility in a particularly violent neighborhood. I'm grateful to the book for giving me a different perspective, one that extends to all emergency medical personnel.

One thing I wish Home Before Morning had was a follow-up; the book's narrative stops in 1982 and I had to go online to find that she eventually re-married, had a daughter and passed away in 2002 and spent a lot of the years between the publication of the book and her death serving as a spokesperson for women veterans and that this book was in part the inspiration for the television series China Beach. Obviously that's not the kind of thing that would appear in this book, but I was interested enough in the tale, and in Van Devanter herself, to want more when it was over. I guess that says something in itself.(less)

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May 08, 2009 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was a few years too young to be a nurse during the Viet Nam era. Always felt I would be a better nurse if I had been able to be a military nurse. In reality, it probably would have hardened me beyond compare based on what I read in this book. God Bless all the military nurses especially those who saw such action and those who currently serve.

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Aug 06, 2008 Jen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read this book for my American history class. The author is a nurse, and this is her first--possibly only--book, and her writing style is a bit trite and unsophisticated at times. But she has a great story to tell. It's about her experiences working as an army nurse in Vietnam. Even though the writing leaves a bit to be desired at times, I would highly recommend this book. Especially to anyone who was not around during that time period. I have to warn you, though, this is really tough to read...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Lindsay Jenkins rated it 5 of 5 stars

The was a very emotional read but it opened my eyes to a subject that I have really avoided. I have a hard time reading or learning about wars but Lynda's view allowed me to learn about her time in Vietnam and the struggles she faced. I think this book would be a great read for anyone just because of what you can learn from it.
It is tough to get through some of the parts and I have to admit I broke down more than once. There are so many different issues and topics related to her story that it m...more

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Jul 05, 2010 Maryclaire Zampogna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't say how sorry I am that I didn't read this book 20 years ago when everybody was coming home from Nam and I was in my own world. I have a great appreciation for all Vets, men and women who are in any war area. I found this book on display at Arlington Cemetery in the WOMENS building. My daughter pointed out that day after reading the displays that the women didn't receive the same benefits as the men. Then I had to read this book. It sure is an eye opener to what they had to endure during...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just re-read this book after having read it for a seminar class on America in 1960's almost 20 years ago. This book is easily the most powerful Vietnam memoir I have ever read.
Note: Author name is Linda Van Devanter NOT Van Devanti as indicated by goodreads.

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Mar 24, 2011 Gwen rated it 4 of 5 stars

New nursing graduate goes to the boonies in Vietnam for a year. A real live M.A.S.H. story, only worse. What I connected to the most was her writing about her re-entry to the USA following her stint in the war.

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Mar 06, 2011 Julie marked it as to-read

Shelves: vietnam-war

Author has a couple letters in Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam

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Sep 10, 2009 Michaelbatte rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a graphic moving autobiographical account of a woman from her nursing school to Vietnam, and then the aftermath of her life. Every American, but especially nurses, should check this out.

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Jan 21, 2012 Tiffany rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-and-reviewed

Lynda Van Devanter is a completely honest author. She's going to tell you about her job as a nurse in Vietnam and she isn't going to hold anything back. That's why I love her.

There are many books about the soldier experience in Vietnam ("The Things They Carried" is a pretty good one) but I really enjoyed reading from the persective of a nurse, it's not a thing you think about much but if I had been alive during that time, I probably would have been a Vietnam nurse. There were so many of them.

Thi...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Mary Brady rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was an outstanding story about a nurse in a mobile hospital/operating room during the Vietnam was. The experiences related were surreal.

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Nov 29, 2009 Connie rated it 5 of 5 stars

A wonderful memoir from a time most Americans would rather forget. God bless or troops, and God bless the nurses who have served in every conflict.

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Mar 22, 2010 Marisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing book. I read this at Officer Basic in San Antonio Texas and continues to be my most memorable thing I have done.

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Aug 23, 2011 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loved this book when I read it years ago. I kept it planning to read it again and will definitely do so.

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Jun 28, 2011 Ana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Heartbreaking story. I have never cried so much when reading a book. One of the best books I have ever read.

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Dec 24, 2010 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the best books I had to read in school. What an amazing story!

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Jan 20, 2013 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Easily one of my favorite books of all time.

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Mar 31, 2011 Morgan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was quite the adventure. It has love, war, friendship, death etc. It was very gripping. I am so glad I had to read this for school becuase I loved it.

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Aug 29, 2012 Jacqueline rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biographical

amazing & harrowing

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Dec 06, 2009 Nancy added it

Great book

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Sep 30, 2007 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nurses

Shelves: memoir

Wow! what a ride! This is one amazing story; it's about the author's year-long tour in Vietnam as an army nurse, as well as the psychological aftermath. It's hard to imagine anyone having lived through that kind of tragedy, chaos, and loss. What a fascinating account. War is hell. It's sad what we haven't learned from history.
Addendum of interest: I have since learned that the TV show China Beach was based on this book.

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Aug 09, 2011 Katy Brandes rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was an okay memoir, but I didn't feel a connection to the author. Her experiences were tragic, and her expression of them seemed heartfelt, but the book was just okay. The stories of the patients were interesting, and you can feel for all of them, but her telling was just not riveting.

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Jun 12, 2009 Peggy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

I loved this book even though it is not an uplifting book at all.

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Jun 01, 2009 Marcia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Author Lynda Van Devanter served as a U.S. Army nurse at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku from 1969-70. Home Before Morning is Lynda's highly acclaimed memoir. Lynda and so many other women faced the brutality of the Vietnam War every day. Their service to their country was all but ignored during the war and immediately after. To all women who served "Thank you and welcome home".

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Dec 21, 2007 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this for the first time as a teenager and it stayed with me. I found a copy at the local friend's of the library books sale and I was so excited! I read it again and it still moved me. What amazing people were in Vietnam, working hard, and coming back to a country that treated them terribly.

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May 31, 2011 westie mom rated it 4 of 5 stars

A timely read for Memorial day. Reminds me of Helene's Journal and a downward spiral.
Brought back bad memories of vet's and their personal trauma/dealings w/me.
Such a totally wasted war. It should be mandatory for all members of congress/presidents to visit war zones regularly.

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Aug 28, 2010 Ms. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

My very favorite book, the late Van Devanter captures the horrors of the Vietnam War in this firsthand account while bringing to it a touch of the humanity that lived those painful years, returned to an unwelcoming homeland, and suffered through the agonies of memory.

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Dec 04, 2010 Tari rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book could have been so much better if the author would have left out all the foul language and the gratuitous sex; it was over the top. It totally ruined an otherwise interesting and potentially educational historical.

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About Lynda Van Devanter

Lynda Van Devanter was one of thousands of American women who served as nurses in Vietnam during the war. Like many of these other women, she worked grueling shifts in a poorly equipped hospital and treated horrible wounds. Upon returning to the United States, she struggled with feelings of anger, depression, and hopelessness with little support from either the U.S. government or American society....more

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