As a woman lies in an American hospital room, she recalls her brutal childhood in Yugoslavia, retracing the psychological journey that brought her to her present condition and reflecting on the possibility of a new life.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In her first novel to be translated into English, a Croatian journalist and frequent contributor to the Nation offers a deceptively simple plot: a women suffering from a life-threatening kidney disease is cured when she receives an organ transplant. The illness is a metaphor; as Drakulic's narrator sifts through the minutiae of details involving the operation and her recovery, she explores what it means to be a woman, both alone and in relation to her family. The novel segues between the narrator's growing up in Yugoslavia and her present life as a patient in a Boston hospital. She relives a suicide attempt and an emotional confrontation with an abusive father, and examines the troubling bond between mothers and daughters--her longing for approval from a beautiful but distant mother, and her ambiguous relationship with her own teenage daughter, whom she has essentially abandoned in Zagreb. The narrator confronts all her demons, one by one, including the most powerful one--her fear of death. Although small in scope, the novel is beautifully conceived, well executed and satisfying.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The hope of physical recovery from an illness offered by organ transplants becomes an end-all for nearly everyone involved. But for some patients, the psychological trauma of experiencing such an operation eclipses the physical health benefits. The protagonist's palpable fear fills each page of this novel by Yugoslav journalist Drakulic as she describes minutiae about a wasting disease and the painful, disorienting, post-operative recovery in the hospital. Brief glimpses of the patient's friends and family over the years reveal instances of support and love and violence. The novel reads like a work of nonfiction because of the power of its descriptive details. Although sometimes tedious in its unrelenting style, this transports the reader into realms where very few actually go. Recommended for public libraries.
- Olivia Opel lo, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Olivia Opel lo, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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