From Publishers Weekly
Seigel's sophomore effort is a scattershot case study in illness, love and the unexplained. Elodie Harrington is an undergraduate at Brown University who lives in the college infirmary, suffering from a series of unrelated illnesses "piggybacked one upon another," so that she never fully recovers. Her story is told from three points of view—Dr. Mark Kirschling's account of her confounding symptoms in the
Journal of Parapsychology and letters between Elodie and Chester Hunter III, a fellow undergrad she meets in the infirmary. Though the structure is a bit contrived (the letters and journal article are filled with dialogue), each section picks up with little repetition. As Chester mends and Elodie get sicker, it becomes clear that their blossoming love is threatened by the specter of health. It doesn't all hold up to close scrutiny, but Seigel has crafted believable characters to anchor the fantastical circumstances, and it's a testament to her ability to captivate that the book ends at what feels like just the beginning.
(Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Brown University student Elodie is a medical curiosity, suffering from a "parade of illnesses" that has forced her to take up residence in the school infirmary. The fever of love joins her physical afflictions when Chester moves into the ward, his sense of invincibility as shattered as his crowbar-smashed kneecaps. Passionate disquisitions the couple write chronicle their affair, interspersed with passages from a journal article by Elodie's Oliver Sacks-like doctor, who reveals his patient's nascent ESP and her disturbing encounters with apparitions. Dwelling a bit too enthusiastically upon the giddy unbosomings of college kids waylaid by love ("You were the white rabbit, and I have to say, it was like I was in Wonderland"), this novel lacks the caustic sensibility that distracted from the rather hazy plot development of Seigel's nihilistic debut,
Like the Red Panda (2004). But followers of contemporary fiction will want to see how an up-and-coming author delivers on the promise of a touted first book--and many will admire the offbeat premise of a campus love connection paralleling connections of a more mystical kind.
Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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