Customer Reviews

Lily's Ghost

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a beautiful first novel, on an important subject. It brings to mind images of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Yellow Wallpaper', and Margaret Atwood's 'Surfacing'. It deals with the madness and aftermath of war, the unique subject of the experience of a female doctor serving in Vietnam, and the redeeming power of love. This is a book everyone should read.

I was continually challenged by this work. While I could not directly relate to the recollected traumatic experiences of its protagonist (as a wartime physician in Viet Nam), I did find myself identifying with the dense, poetic imagery used to articulate her thoughts and reflections on what she was experiencing in real time as the book progressed...as Lily struggled so hard to integrate her excruciating past into her current life in a "normal" world. I often found myself pausing to re-read and ponder upon certain passages, eager to extract the gifts I knew they held for me.

While I have "finished" reading Lily's Ghost, I know I will carry these gifts with me as a continuing, abiding testament to the value of something all too rare: one author's skillful rendering of what grace we can find as we all face down our ghosts.

This brought the Vietnam era into the present for brief moments but through the eyes of a woman -- a truly different, impressive approach. One could feel Lily's panic and her inside conflict. But life shows us that a child must be protected and Harris shows us the way that it can be made to be okay. Take care of the child, take care of the mother, honor the father and his place in this picture and remember the past.