In Country Summary
Bobbie Ann Mason

In Country Summary

Part I

Bobbie Ann Mason's novel In Country is the story of Samantha Hughes, known as Sam, and her quest to uncover the truth of the Vietnam War. For seventeen-year-old Sam, the war has particular significance: her father died in Vietnam shortly before her own birth.

The novel is divided into three parts; the first and last parts, written in present tense, frame the middle of the novel, told in a long flashback. As the story opens, Sam, Sam's maternal uncle, Emmett, a Vietnam War veteran, and Sam's paternal grandmother, Mawmaw, are driving from their home in Kentucky to Washington D.C. to visit the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. There is the suggestion that some crisis, reached about two weeks earlier, precipitated the cross-country trip.

Part II

In the second part of the story, the novel slips into past tense and recounts the events of the summer immediately before the trip to the Wan.... View more of the In Country Summary