Product Description

They had their whole lives to look forward to if only their husbands could survive Vietnam. In the spring of 1970 - right after the Kent State National Guard shootings and President Nixon's two-month incursion into Cambodia - four newly married young women come together at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, when their husbands go on active duty as officers in the U.S. Army. Different as these four women are, they have one thing in common: Their overwhelming fear that, right after these nine weeks of training, their husbands could be shipped out to Vietnam - and they could become war widows. Sharon is a Northern Jewish anti-war protester who fell in love with an ROTC cadet; Kim is a Southern Baptist whose husband is intensely jealous; Donna is a Puerto Rican who grew up in an enlisted man's family; and Wendy is a Southern black whose parents have sheltered her from the brutal reality of racism in America. Read MRS. LIEUTENANT to discover what happens as these women overcome their prejudices, reveal their darkest secrets, and are initiated into their new lives as army officers' wives during the turbulent Vietnam War period.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1423371 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-07
• Released on: 2008-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 494 pages

Review
"Mrs. Lieutenant" follows the lives of four Vietnam-era army wives as they arrive at Fort Knox to watch their husbands head off to war. While the prose is clean and (for the most part) error-free, it's also a little pedestrian--the author is caught up in small details, such as the height or a character or the exact date of the action. The booklet excerpts and descriptions of what's happening in the war (sending troops to Cambodia, Kent State shootings) don't add anything to the novel and instead give it more gravitas than it deserves. -- Amazon Top Reviewer

Follow four women as they leave their families and surroundings to follow their husbands into the United States Army. Share their feelings, their terror and their dreams as they try to be supportive and loving as they fear for the worst. This is a very interesting read that takes you into the minds of each woman and all women who are faced with this journey. The plot is quite compelling and well written. -- Amazon Top Reviewer

Four young women follow their husbands to officers' training school with little certainty about their social standing and even less about their husband's futures in this story set three years after the summer of love. Kim, Wendy, Donna, and Sharon have everything in common except their backgrounds. As a Jew, a black, a Puerto Rican, and a white southern woman, they make a convenient test case for friendship by default. Sharon, who grew up part of "an imagined, if not actual majority" is the most confident of the group, but struggles with being connected by marriage to "the war machine." Donna has already lost one husband to Vietnam and fears for her second. Wendy considers leaving her husband rather than lose him in combat, and Kim's orphaned youth has colored her judgment about her "white knight" of a jealous bigoted husband. Over the course of three months, the women share secrets and etiquette lessons, which are excerpted from the army-issued "Mrs. Lieutenant" booklet at the head of each chapter. The summer ends with one climactic event , underplayed by a mundane parting of ways by four friends. This slow-moving drama about picnics, diaphragms, and head-patting husbands may be an accurate depiction of the social milieu of Fort Knox in 1970 - but that isn't enough to sustain readers' attention. -- manuscript review by Publishers Weekly, an independent organization

About the Author
Phyllis Zimbler Miller is a former Mrs. Lieutenant and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book "Seasons for Celebration." She has recently written a teen guide based on her coaching of young people (www.flippingburgersandbeyond.com) and lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Interesting look at the role of an officer's wife
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (5/08)

"Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel" begins in May of 1970, right after the Kent State shootings by the National Guard. Four very different women and their husbands begin their journey down to Fort Knox, Kentucky where their husbands will be attending nine weeks of Army Officer's Basic Training.

The book alternates telling the story from each woman's point of view. First, we have Sharon, a Jewish woman from the North who is anti-war. Second, there is Kim who is a Southerner with a husband who keeps close tabs on her and has jealousy issues. Thirdly, we have Donna who is of Puerto Rican ancestry and grew up in a military family. Lastly, there is Wendy who is an African-American from the South.

The characters in this novel come from very different backgrounds and are the epitome of these differences in 1970, only six years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, so it was very intriguing to see how they would react in certain social situations with one another. I was curious whether or not they would be able to change their way of thinking and become more accepting of those who differed from themselves. I found it interesting when the author had them experience new things and form relationships outside of their comfort zone.

The only linking factor among the four main characters is that they are all officers' wives. Take away this commonality and take into account the time period and you have four very distinctive individuals with varying belief systems. For instance, as a white Southern Baptist, Kim has issues with people of different backgrounds. In one exchange between Kim and her husband, she mentions that when she went with Sharon to the PX there was a black man who held the door for them. Sharon said it was because he was being polite but Kim thought he was gawking at them. Kim's husband perceives this happened not only because of Sharon's being Jewish, and says, "That's Northerner's thinking. They just don't know what we know, living with them the way we do."

Another thing about the book I liked was that at the beginning of each chapter there was a quote from Mary Preston Gross' 1970's "Mrs. Lieutenant" which taught proper etiquette for an officer's wife. It was interesting to read some of the standard protocol for certain situations and events.

The author, Phyllis Zimbler Miller, writes from experience as she was a former "Mrs. Lieutenant" herself during the 1970s. Even though this book is fictional it is based in fact and I felt I learned a lot about military life and, overall, about the tension among people who were of different backgrounds during this era. I recommend "Mrs. Lieutenant" for any military family or for anyone who enjoys fiction written about the Vietnam War time period.

The Best of Everything for Vietnam-Era Miltary Wives
Phyllis Miller sent me this book after seeing my name on an Internet forum. I was a little concerned because many first novels are really amateurish, almost embarrassing to read.

But I really liked Mrs. Lieutenant. Miller is a writer. She knows how to set up her story and make the characters seem real. Her pacing was good: I didn't want to stop reading. The story arc was strong.

As I read, I was reminded of Rona Jaffe's classic, The best of everything, made into a movie that captured the 50s era career woman.

What Jaffe did for the college graduate in publishing, Miller does for the Vietnam era junior officer's wife.

Those women reminded me of my college classmates who married right out of college (even though they weren't all college grads). Women were expected to marry. They had uneasy relationships with their husbands. They worried about what to wear and what to cook. And they lived in those awful apartments! I visited friends with husbands in grad school, living in student housing and eating budget meals...very similar.

Miller captures the freshness and naiveté of those women, all transplanted to an environment that forced them to deal with new challenges. They met people who were really different from themselves in religion, values, child rearing styles and of course accents. They're so nervous when summoned to tea with the commanding officer and they wear gloves...gloves!

We didn't get too much insight into the men's days at Armor School in Fort Knox. They didn't seem to have homework and they didn't talk about getting uniforms ready and other details of their world.

As a survivor of that era, not married myself, I watched my friends grow into the Women's Movement just five years later. They went back to school, finished graduate degrees and told their husbands, "It's my turn now." Some got divorced. Some just went through a rocky patch.

I just watched the PBS series, Carrier. Commentaries noted that officers' wives have their own careers now. They're doctors, lawyers, psychologists and teachers. Watching families join sailors at the end of the cruise, you could see how much the military has changed. For one thing, women are flying planes off carrier decks and running traffic control rooms.

So what I take away from Mrs. Lieutenant is a trip down memory lane. I can remember not just the hairstyles but also the tight social fabric, the awkward social situations when you had to do the right thing, the young women rushing into marriages instead of taking time to have their own lives.

Miller subtitles the book "A Sharon Gold Novel," suggesting she will write more. I hope she does.

The Women Behind the Men
"Mrs. Lieutenant" presents the vivid, personal stories of four young wives as they learn to cope with military life, against the backdrop of America at war--both in Vietnam and at home--in 1970. The four "Mrs. Lieutenants" (they are defined by their husbands' roles) embark on their individual journeys into womanhood, providing us with an intimate, detailed perspective on one of our Nation's most dynamic, unsettling and influential eras.