But this story from Anita Shreve is different, as readers of her books might expect.
Although she does not spare us the reality of the terrible wounds inflicted on so many, the story surrounds a young Canadian volunteer nurse, who, having worked in a hospital close to the battlefield, is found in a park in central London, suffering from pneumonia and traumatic memory loss, a condition only barely beginning to be understood in 1915.
Taken in by the kindly wife of a cranial surgeon, her physical health is recovered but not her memory. Talking to the surgeon, in an early form of ''talk therapy'', they discover that she has great artistic skill and she manages to come up with a name for herself, Stella Bain. She is mysteriously compelled furthermore to go the Admiralty building, and there one day she is recognised by a former lover and remembers that she has children.
The story moves back in time and the sources of her trauma are uncovered.
This is a great story, involving the horrors of the war, but most importantly heroism and romance. A brilliantly described court case in America eventuates, where traumatic memory loss is dismissed and a mother is refused custody of her children, as was the case not infrequently at that time.
This is a heroine of tremendous courage and determination, who emerges beautifully from this most enjoyable book.
- Margaret Bannister is a retired Dunedin psychotherapist and science teacher.
