Living in Western diplomatic privilege with cooks and maids and drivers, the women in the new novel “Absolution” spend their days attending luncheons, lectures and cocktail parties as the Vietnam War rumbles in the background. It's 1963 Saigon, but the wives of ambitious American attorneys and engineers are focused on writing clever letters with French phrases to be slipped into light blue airmail envelopes and the daily dressing rituals that include girdles, stockings and white dress shields fastened with tiny gold safety pins. Alice McDermott's ninth novel perfectly captures the manner and mood of that era and the constricted lives that women led as “helpmeets” for their husbands.