In The Cape Doctor, E.J. Levy crafts a historical novel on the real life of a young Irish girl who becomes a successful surgeon in the 1800s.
Much has been written, as evidenced in Levy’s acknowledgements about the life of Margaret Anne Bulkley aka Dr. James Barry. Relying on facts about him, Levy’s narrative portrays Margaret Brackley’s transformation to Dr. Jonathan Perry as arduous and driven by necessity. Margaret’s family is destitute; she can do little as a daughter.
The story moves from Cork, Ireland, to London; from Edinburgh to Cape Town. As the settings change, so does Margaret. Thanks to a friend of her late uncle, she is privately educated proving to be an excellent student. In order to attend medical school, so that she may ultimately provide for her family, she must live life as a man.
This, of course, is not without complications. Nonetheless, Perry earns a medical degree, joins the army and is sent to Cape Town. This is where the majority of the narrative occurs and the greatest threats to Perry’s true identify arise.
Levy establishes intrigue through Perry’s friendship with Lord Somerton, the Cape Town governor. Even as the doctor makes his name as a man of compassion and skilled surgeon, rumors begin to surface the type of relationship shared by the two men.
The fear of Perry’s exposure is engaging. Yet, the slow-moving pace isn’t captivating enough.
When five-year-old Clara Bynum drowns in the Potomac River, the impact of her death weighs heavily on her parents, her older sister Johnnie Rae and the Black community in Georgetown where they live.
Although Breena Clarke’s novel, River, Cross My Heart could more easily be titled River, Break My Heart, how pre-teen Johnnie Rae processes her sister’s accident is the most interesting aspect. The narrative unfolds in a series of vignettes describing the residents, many who moved to this Washington, D.C., neighborhood from the south seeking a better life. By all accounts, their situations were greatly improved: jobs for the adults and schools for the children.
Johnnie Rae was tasked with caring for Clara, something she both resented and took seriously. She had only taken her eyes off the younger girl for a few minutes, and despite multiple efforts to save Clara from in the fast moving water, Johnnie Rae has no clear memory of what happened. Later, she is certain the new girl in school is Clara incarnate.
Unsurprisingly, though they were better off, the jobs were menial and opportunities were both limited and unequal. The latter is something Johnnie Rae finds especially irksome in the form of a nearby whites-only swimming pool. The Potomac is the only place she and her friends can swim and play in the water. Johnnie Rae is a natural born swimmer; something she does with ease and grace. It’s never clear how she came to be so adept. Nonetheless, being in the water is where she feels she is most herself. Eventually, a new pool opens for Blacks where she joins the swim team.
Clarke’s descriptions of the circa 1925 neighborhood, its residents and the Bynum family’s loss are vivid. However, framing this as a series of short stories rather than a novel would be more effective; there are too many detours to form a clear plot.
I choose books based on reviews I’ve read, recommendations from friends or sometimes the title alone is enough to intrigue me. The latter and a review led me to Emma Donoghue’sThe Pull of the Stars.
Unfortunately, there was no pull for me; I discovered this within the first 20 pages. The problem is that the background is the 1918 flu epidemic and the references to quarantines are simply too immediate — even more than a century later.
Donoghue’s novel is set in Dublin and its main character is Julia Power, a nurse in an obstetrics unit in a hospital decimated by the flu. By the way, World War II is still raging.
An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma is creatively written drawing on Nigerian folklore to tell a modern story of love, personal freedom and expectations.
Chinonso, a chicken farmer, meets Ndali, a young woman about to jump off a bridge. He convinces her not to leap, and they go their separate ways. His parents are deceased, his sister estranged. Ndali is in pharmacy school and is the daughter of a wealthy family. She tracks him down, they fall in love, and happily ever should come next.
Of course, her parents disapprove not just because he is a chicken farmer, but because he isn’t well-educated. He decides to pursue a college education knowing it will be a long process. An old friend arrives boasting of life in Cyprus where it’s easy to find a good-paying job and finish college in less time than in Nigeria. The friend makes the necessary arrangements; Chinonso sells his flock, his house, gives his friend money and leaves Ndali to become a better man.
Chinonso’s chi, inner spirit, narrates Chinonso’s story to the Igbo deities, of which there are several. Most paragraphs, directed to one or more in particular, are full of lengthy details foretelling of something ruinous to come motivated by Chinonso’s deep love for Ndali.
Chinonso believes in his decision; Ndali is less sure. His journey is a roller coaster of hope and despair, which the reader shares with Chinonso. This is far from uplifting, yet the narrative lingers long after the last page.
An Orchestra of Minorities
Four Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2019
448 pages
Circeby Madeline Miller is a who’s who of Greek mythology in the best way possible. This is a tale of desire through its various expressions, mortality/immortality and love in its many different forms.
Miller has fictionalized the life of Circe, the Greek goddess. It was she who transformed the beautiful nymph, Scylla, into the six-headed sea monster responsible for the deaths of numerous sailors in a narrow channel linking two seas.
Circe, the unfavored daughter of Helios the sun god and Perse, is exiled to the island of Aiaia. Despite her isolation, she comes in contact with others associated with the Odyssey. Before she meets Odysseus, however, Hermes, Jason, Medea and Daedalus are among those she encounters.
She is granted a brief respite from exile to assist her sister who gives birth to the Minotaur. Daedalus, father of Icarus, builds the labyrinth in which the half-man half-bull was confined. Circe and the mortal craftsman return to Aiaia. While this is a significant relationship, it is Odysseus who later claims Circe’s heart. This despite transforming his men into pigs and knowing his wife, Penelope, awaits his return.
In exile, Circe is only deprived of constant companionship. Otherwise, all of her needs are met. She discovers, through trial and error, the powers of the flora around her. Readers also learn the gods are ageless – to such an extent that Circe is hundreds of years old, with no physical evidence. Ultimately, this serves as a catalyst for her to attempt her greatest transformation ever.
Circe
Five Bookmarks
Little, Brown & Co., 2018
393 pages
Hannah Kent has a gift for describing squalor and the role of superstition among the most vulnerable. This talented writer, whose debut novel, Burial Rites, was set in Iceland, now transports readers to rural Ireland in The Good People. The ambiguous title refers to the name given to evil faeries and those with virtuous, albeit misdirected, intentions.
Set in nineteenth century rural Ireland, Kent’s engaging narrative follows three women: Nora, a recent widow, with a sickly grandson; Nance, known for her curative powers; and Mary, the young maid Nora hires to help care for the boy who can neither speak nor walk, although he once did.
Nora’s shame for her grandson is so extreme she keeps him hidden and is surprised to learn from Mary that the villagers know of his presence. In fact, they have already deemed him a changeling, a creature from another world, that of the Good People. How else can the locals explain the ill fortunes that have recently befallen their community: death, cows no longer milking, illness and more.
Nora unsuccessfully seeks medical help, then solace from the new priest who both believe the lad will soon die.
Imagining that her grandson has been abducted and the withered but breathing body is left in his place, Nora turns to Nance who is certain she has a cure. Young Mary empathizes with the helpless child and is caught in the middle. She’s skeptical of the older women and their motives. Yet, the question regarding Nance’s powers lingers.
The Good People
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Company, 2016
380 pages
I’ve written once before about giving myself permission not to finish a book. I usually make the decision within the first 50 pages. I just stopped after 360 pages of Eleanor Catton’s 830 page tome, The Luminaries. The strange thing is, I will probably finish. Someday. Not now though; I have too many other books on my nightstand, and the library copy I’m reading is already overdue.
I can’t say it took me more than 300 pages to get into the 2013 Man Booker Prize winner, but it was no easy trek to make it that far, which is not even halfway.
The tale begins in January 1866 when Walter Moody arrives in a New Zealand mining town seeking his fortune. His first night in town finds him among 12 men ready to discuss a series of events to which they are all directly or tenuously connected. Catton pays meticulous attention to detail. Each character is exhaustively described from appearances, mannerisms, likes, dislikes, self-perceptions and reputation. Moody and company aren’t the novel’s only characters: a few women of mystery and ill-repute and several men who have either died or gone missing are also fastidiously introduced. Yet.
The relationships through business, friendship and happenstance actually do make for an interesting story. Hidden gold, lost fortunes, prejudices and the association of the characters is a maze. while easy to follow from one possible explanation only to be thwarted by another, is eventually, and finally, enthralling. I just hate to have library fines.
The Luminaries Undecided on Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2013
360 pages of 830
It should come as no surprise from the title of Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites, that death plays a major role since it overshadows the entire plot. It is also obvious from the onset who will die and why. What is less clear is the unexpected empathy that develops for the condemned.
Kent creates an unlikely protagonist in Agnes Magnusdottir, charged with the brutal murder of her former lover. While awaiting her execution, Agnes is sent to live with a farmer’s family apprehensive of have a murderess in their home. Like the harsh, cold Icelandic setting in which the story occurs, warmth toward to Agnes is slow to kindle.
The beauty of Kent’s writing lies in her ability to develop an emotional response in readers in much the same way the host family members relinquish their reluctance, revulsion and fear of having Agnes in their midst. The transformation is hard won.
Told in part from Agnes’s perspective, a few official letters, and an omniscient narrator, each character is skillfully portrayed through personality quirks, physical descriptions, and overt reactions. It’s easy to envision the pompous, narrow-minded District Commissioner who inflicts his will. Kent is equally successful in developing Toti, the young assistant reverend Agnes has requested as her spiritual advisor. This uncertain young man, and his faith, evolves as Agnes grows more comfortable sharing details of her life.
The novel, a fictional account of actual events, demonstrates hardened hearts can be softened by honesty, profound interaction, and a good storyteller.
Burial Rites
Four-and-half Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Company, 2013
322 pages
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple is engaging, funny, poignant, and even a bit silly. Set primarily in Seattle, the story also includes a few situations in Los Angeles and the Antarctic as Bernadette Fox tries to ward off a nervous breakdown in an environment seemingly designed to push her over the edge.
Bernadette is a semi-misanthrope; she dislikes nearly everyone except her husband, Elgie, and their daughter, Bee. Bernadette doesn’t make it easy to like her. She refuses to get involved with the parent groups at Bee’s school, and she avoids interaction – no matter how casual – with others to such an extreme that she relies on a virtual personal assistant who lives in India.
Semple has created an appealing dysfunctional family that has trouble meshing with an often-dysfunctional world. Bernadette, a one-time architect, is, in fact, a genius; she’s a past recipient of a McArthur Foundation Genius Grant. But she responds to stressful situations through radical reactions, including disappearing. Bernadette’s story is told through emails, letters and mostly Bee’s eyes. Bee is no intellectual slouch herself. She’s convinced there’s a logical explanation for her mother’s absence. And here’s where the real adventure begins as Bee sets off to find Bernadette.
Russian spies, potential identity thieves, private school students, and parents blind to their children’s excesses and foibles are just a few of the extras populating Semple’s novel. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud situations as well as a few shoulder-shrugging moments as Bee, who has a very good understanding of her mother, refuses to stop looking.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Four-and-a-half Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2012
326 pages
It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally after finishing a book I’m uncertain
how I feel about it. TheLifeboat by Charlotte Rogan leaves me ambivalent.
It’s an interesting premise: a group of 40 adrift after their ocean liner explodes
at sea. The year is 1914, so the event is sandwiched between the (unrelated) sink-
ing of the Titanic and the Lusitania.
Grace, newly married, is the narrator whose story is based on journals she is
asked by her attorneys to prepare after the fact. Perhaps some of my hesitance
to rave or rant lies in Grace. It’s clear as she relates how she came to marry her
her husband that she is a manipulator, if not an all-out gold digger. Few of the
characters act admirably in the adverse conditions, but remember Grace is tell-
ing the story. However, even she admits her memory is faulty, at best, from the
extreme conditions of being lost at sea for an extended period of time (at least
two weeks).
Where Rogan shines is descriptive writing: “The boat pitched and rolled as it
alternately climbed the foamy heights of the waves and then descended into hell-
ish troughs so that we were surrounded on four sides by walls of black water.”
It’s enough to keep me away from a boat of any size let alone one meant to save
lives.
Rogan’s boat is a metaphor for choices made and the motivation behind them.
The question I’m struggling to answer is if the idea’s strong enough to hold water?
Lifeboat
Three Bookmarks
Little, Brown and Co., 2012
278 pages
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