The Crimson Portrait: A Novel [Hardcover]

Jody Shields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2006

Set in England during World War I, this haunting love story by the author of the bestselling "The Fig Eater" makes unforgettably real the ravages of love and war.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A majestic English estate sees new use as a makeshift hospital for WWI's wounded in Shields's beautifully haunting second novel. After losing her husband, Charles, in WWI, Catherine honors his wish to turn their home over to the army's medical unit, and it is soon filled with men wounded in combat, such as Julian, who, though half his face has been destroyed by shrapnel, reminds her of Charles. Dr. McCleary, who left retirement to work at the hospital, bonds with Julian while trying to keep Artis, an aspiring doctor and former groundskeeper, from being drafted. Also on staff is artist Anna Coleman, who sketches the wounded for medical records and lends her artistic talents to an undertaking proposed by Dr. McCleary: he wants to create a mask for a patient with an irreparably damaged face; Anna is to paint the soldier's pre-injury face on the mask. When that soldier turns out to be Julian, Catherine secretly embarks on a plan to resurrect her husband through her new lover. Shields's writing weaves dark mythical symbolism with matter-of-fact medical nitty-gritty to reveal what happens when class, ignorance, hopefulness and despair coalesce. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Catherine, a wealthy Brit, makes a promise to her husband as he leaves for the front during World War I. In the event of his death, she will allow their estate to be used as an army hospital. She grants his wish but is ill-prepared for the arrival of wounded soldiers with severely disfigured faces. She continues to live on the property, forming an uneasy alliance with the patients and medical staff who now occupy the first floor. As the days go by, Catherine becomes convinced her husband is alive--and wandering the grounds. Shields (The Fig Eater, 2000) renders richly textured prose and a cast of vibrant characters led by head surgeon McCleary: "He wished for a perfection of skin for his patients. He imagined squares of skin the size of rose petals that would miraculously float down over the faces of the wounded men, and cover their wounds--thick, silent and painless as a snowfall." Equally intriguing are sketch artist Anna, who becomes part of a bold endeavor to create a new face for an injured soldier, and Catherine herself, who indulges her heart as the war draws closer to her door. Skillfully woven into Shields' haunting narrative are vivid--and at times, unsettling--descriptions of surgical procedures. A top-drawer literary thriller. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1ST edition (December 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316785288
• ISBN-13: 978-0316785280
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,748,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sadly Disappointing!, January 14, 2007

By 

Rossana Snee "Book-a-holic" (Lakewood, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crimson Portrait: A Novel (Hardcover)

The premise of this book sounded great. Then I read it. For me it read at a snails pace. I thought the story was supposed to be about Catherine, based on the book jacket. Instead it was about Dr. McCleary, the surgeon, or so it seemed to me. Thank goodness I liked his character. I didn't care for any of the others. The author never really got into their heads, all except McCleary. The book dragged for me and the only reason I read daily was just to finish it so I could move on to another book. I had no interest in the ending of Portrait. Speaking of which, it was confusing. I was left with many questions. Why did Anna not like Catherine? Why did Anna keep rejecting Dr. Kazanjian when she followed him because she liked him? Did McCleary die? Did Catherine end up with Julian? Did he know about his mask? All in all, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Also, I got very bored with her over- usage of the word "crimson." I wish she'd try using red for a change.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "We see them as gargoyles, and this completes the injury the enemy has done.", December 5, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crimson Portrait: A Novel (Hardcover)

Shields is a significant writer who has bravely tackled a difficult subject, the destructive nature of war and the emotional complexities of trauma. Both off-putting and riveting, the novel takes place in London in 1915, World War I decimating London and moving closer to the countryside, where a remote estate has been offered by Catherine, a recent widow, to be used as a military hospital. Still reeling from the loss of her beloved husband, Charles, Catherine has not yet accepted the reality of her situation: "I have simply lost tolerance for damaged things."

The hospital staff is headed by Dr. McCleary, who concentrates on patients with severe facial injuries, dedicating his talents and research to restoring the men's faces and thus the direction of their grossly altered futures. With great compassion, McCleary accepts the widow's generosity in spite of reservations, driven to find a way to heal these injuries: "Truth won't heal these men." Catherine is drawn to a young soldier, Julius, layers of gauze hiding the wreckage beneath. In her desperation to recapture Charles, Catherine seizes upon an opportunity, persuading McCleary to attempt an innovative technique and restore Julian to some semblance of humanity, confusing her own yearnings with his likeness to her husband, or at least her perception of it. In her heart, Catherine admits her duplicity, but is unable to deny herself.

Other figures in the novel are of equal importance, most notably a foreign doctor, Kazanjian, and his assistant, Anna Coleman, an artist. Coleman sketches the images of the men's damaged faces in detail of the doctor's work: an illustrated text of facial injuries at a time when very little has been accomplished in the area of facial reconstruction. Anna's work is priceless, documenting the extraordinary creativity of the artists and surgeons during the war. Anna and Kazanjian are instrumental in McCleary's work to restore Julius's face. Anna stands by helplessly as the widow pursues her illusions, but it is the artist, firmly grounded in reality, who finds the comfort and understanding denied by a brutal war.

As in The Fig Eater, Shields' prose is at times ethereal, showing a fine sensitivity for the psychological effects of physical damage, contrasted with the very difficult details of the injuries and treatment methodologies. Unerringly, the emotional and scientific collide as the characters grapple with the impossible, lives forever changed and psyches unable to heal. The descriptions of medical procedures, while informational, provide a disturbing view of the horrific damage done to young men who are irreparably transformed into frightening visions of their former selves: "We see them as gargoyles, and this completes the injury the enemy has done." No matter the compassion and drive to recreate what is destroyed, once shattered, whether emotional or physical, all must find a way to survive the unbearable. Luan Gaines/2006.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original and thought-provoking story about the First World War, March 14, 2008

By 

S. Barnes (UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Crimson Portrait: A Novel (Hardcover)

Fictionalised account, but based on some solid factual research, Jody Shields boldly tells the story of soldiers brutally disfigured by facial injury during the First World War. Shocking, and yet compelling, I found I couldn't put this book down, even though I wasn't particularly drawn to Shields's quite ethereal writing style.

The year is 1915. It's early days for the war, and yet a young woman on a large country estate is mourning the loss of her husband, made even more unbearable by the fact that nobody saw him die. Catherine cannot believe that Charles has truly left her. She turns her home over to the military, for use as a war hospital, whilst maintaining a small suite of rooms for herself. Initially Catherine tends to hide herself away from the changes going on in her home and doesn't immediately realise that her home has become a specialist hospital for men with severe facial wounds. Nearly all patients are tube fed a liquid diet, and have to suffer many pioneering operations to their faces to try to restore some facial features, and functions.

Catherine looks for signs of Charles everywhere - messages from him to show her that he is still there. Then she starts to look for Charles in one of the patients, Julian. His stature and posture bear a striking resemblance to Charles... Catherine wonders if she can turn him into Charles altogether, but soon realises her mistake.

Intertwined, is the story of the elderly Dr. MacLeary, brought back from retirement as a 'specialist' in this area of surgery, although he has never before seen anything like the wounds he is now encountering. Having no other attachments, he comes to form a fatherly bond with a young lad from the estate, Artis, not quite yet of conscription age. It's easy to form an empathy with these characters, but less easy to empathise with Anna, the artist recording the men's facial wounds, and Dr. Kazanjian, the innovative dentist sent from a field hospital at the Front to assist Dr. MacLeary. Anna and Kazanjian have a tense and strained bond but spend much of their time avoiding conversation. A strange relationship, made all the more difficult to empathise with due to Anna's terse and abrupt mannerisms. Anna and Dr. Kazanjian are the two characters in the novel inspired by real historical figures, Anna Coleman Ladd and Varaztad Kazanjian.

A very thought-provoking novel. I can highly recommend it for the story, the different perspective of suffering in the First World War, the portrayal of the origins of plastic surgery. The writing style is very light, almost intangible in places, whereas there are parts of the novel which I feel could have benefitted from some more full and vivid descriptions and explanations. A minor criticism for an otherwise excellent book.