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It’s May 1966, and in Coronado Island, California Frances “Frankie” Grace McGrath is mingling at a party for her brother Finley’s deployment to Vietnam as a Navy sailor. Frankie is from a lavishly wealthy and prominent family with a very pedigreed military background. There was never any doubt in the minds of the McGrath parents that both Finley and his best friend Rye Walsh would enlist in the armed forces, so this party is a long-expected celebration of a dream being fulfilled. Bette and Connor McGrath don’t have such high military hopes for Frankie, however. Frankie struggles with her family’s misogynistic and limited view of the obligations she and her brother are under. Finley, on the other hand always encourages her to believe that women can also do heroic things.
After Finley’s tragic death in action, Frankie defies her parents’ wishes and enlists as a nurse. She begins Basic Training for field nursing duties in the surgical division in 1967 and is quickly deployed to Vietnam. Although she’s initially horrified by the brutality and scale of wartime violence, she quickly adapts to life on the base. While in Vietnam, she builds loving friendships with two nurses she shares a “hooch” with—Barb and Ethel —and steps into her new role as a surgical nurse working under Dr. Jamie Callahan. Frankie and Jamie hesitantly begin a relationship, knowing it can go nowhere because Jamie is married. However, all seems to be lost when Jamie apparently dies from injuries sustained in a helicopter crash shortly before finishing his deployment.
Frankie has almost no time to grieve. Because of her excellent nursing skills, she’s quickly assigned to the far more dangerous area in the highlands of Pleiku. Barb is exhausted from her tours and plans to go home without re-enlisting after Pleiku. While at Pleiku Frankie takes an R and R break in Saigon and runs into her brother’s friend Rye. Their attraction is instant, and Rye soon tells her he’s broken off his engagement to a girl at home to be with her. The two take another R and R break together in Kauai, Hawaii as soon as they can. Although Frankie’s tour in Vietnam ends in March 1968, she knows she’s still needed and chooses to extend her service, as does Rye. During her second tour she sees more horrible wartime atrocities than she can count, including the effects that napalm had on soldiers and civilians alike. She begins to drink more regularly to dull the disgust and shock.
In March 1969, Frankie returns to California after a riotous party celebrating the end of her second tour. As she waits for Rye to return to the US and for their reunion, she discovers that life at home is not much easier than life in Vietnam. The US is erupting in anti-war protests, and instead of being seen as a hero, many think of Frankie and veterans like her as villains. She learns that her parents are ashamed of her service and had lied about where she had gone to their well-heeled friends and family. Frankie has terrible recurring nightmares about violence in Vietnam, and isolates herself from her former friends. Things only get worse when she hears from Rye’s father that that Rye has been killed in Vietnam. To add insult to injury, his remains are also unrecoverably damaged so there is no memorial service. His death devastates Frankie, and she loses her temporary job at the local hospital. Because she wasn’t actively involved in combat, the VA also denies her mental or medical healthcare. Feeling like everyone despises her, Frankie turns to Barb and Ethel for help. Ethel offers her a place at her father’s farmhouse, giving Frankie room to plan what’s next and to adjust to her new, lonely life without Rye.
The narrative shifts forward to April 1971 in Virginia, where Frankie, now 25, has picked up the threads of her former life. She’s now a well-respected surgical nurse and is living with Barb and Ethel. The trio often attends anti-war protests, and during a trip to D.C. for a demonstration, Frankie receives news that her mother has had a stroke and her father is struggling to cope. She returns home to Coronado and partially reconciles with her parents. Frankie then joins a group focused on repatriating prisoners of war and starts a relationship with Henry Acevedo, an anti-war psychiatrist who supports and shows very persistent interest in her. She becomes pregnant quickly, and they agree to marry (to the relief of Frankie’s parents).
Things go steeply downhill, however, when Frankie learns that Rye was not killed in combat after all but is back in the US with a wife and child. He never ended his other engagement. Frankie is so shocked that she miscarries, and decides to end her relationship with Henry because it’s only making her feel worse. Throughout this period, she’s been relying on mood-altering pills to regulate her PTSD, but after breaking things off with Henry she begins to take more and more and to drink daily. She spirals into full-blown addiction. Unsurprisingly this has a negative impact on both her professional and personal life, and she’s fired from her nursing job at the hospital. Rye comes to see her, and despite her initial fury she can’t resist beginning a new relationship with him. He promises he’ll leave his wife for her repeatedly, but never actually does. Frankie is willing to live in hope until she discovers that Rye’s wife is pregnant with their second child. Once again, he has utterly deceived her. She’s miserable and overwhelmed, and in her despair overdoses on pills.
Frankie’s parents and few remaining friends have been very concerned about her since she returned from Vietnam, but this is the final straw. Henry runs a treatment program at the local hospital, where they push for her to be admitted. Henry explains to Frankie that she has PTSD from her service in Vietnam, and that it’s the reason for her nightmares and the root of her addictions. Frankie still feels like no one understands what she did in Vietnam. Although Frankie’s father begrudgingly adds her photo to the hero’s wall, it is not enough. When Frankie finishes recovery, she resolves to start completely afresh, away from Coronado and her past life. She buys a run-down farmhouse in Montana, just outside Missoula. She has a vision for how she can help other former nurses like herself deal with the aftermath of Vietnam. She collaborates with Donna, another nurse with PTSD, to transform the property into a sanctuary for female Vietnam veterans called The Last Best Place. It’s a success, and women from all over the country come to recover and to live in community. The book concludes as Frankie attends the unveiling of the Vietnam War Memorial. The reader gets one final surprise; in the last pages, Frankie reunites with a recently-divorced Jamie, who had survived his crash.
