From Publishers Weekly
The aftermath of a child's injury leaves a trail of love, loss and mystery around generations of women in British author—and former nurse—Ferguson's finely wrought American debut. After an accident in 1953 threatens a young boy named George with blindness, his mother, Ruby, becomes the target of an anonymous, vicious letter-writer and begins to lose her grip on reality. Meanwhile a young nurse and a medical student meet while sitting over George's hospital bed and begin an all-consuming romance. Their happy courtship worries working-class nurse Iris when she enters her boyfriend Rob's posh and unwelcoming world. Forty years later, Sylvia, a talented London eye surgeon reads the crumbling old hospital notes detailing George's surgery and must confront her lack of inner vision when it comes to her new child, her family and a life-long friendship. Ferguson does a beautiful job of drawing together the pieces—the relationship between our physical and moral ailments, and injuries with our inner pain and suffering—and her nonlinear storytelling builds a sense of foreboding, mystery and pathos as the fates of all these characters' interlocking lives are revealed.
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Review
Omaha World-Herald“…erudite reading… [that gives] a sense of breathlessness for the reader anxious to know the next piece of a character's story…a fine undertaking for the reader.”
Vogue
“... Fiction finds suspense in twisting tales of love and legacy. ... Patricia Ferguson's deftly plotted Peripheral Vision revolves around three women- a fifties-era housewife traumatized by her son's damaged eye, a shy working-class nurse involved with a wealthy medical student, and a contemporary eye surgeon blind to her own misperceptions- who struggle to bring their lives into focus.”
Library Journal“Ferguson makes excellent use of flashback and alternating…illustrating the subtle yet telling influences people can have on one another in even the most innocent of interactions…Fans of literary fiction will appreciate the novel's wit and quietly apt observations on the human condition.”
ForeWord Magazine“Crisp dialogue, trenchant observations, and crystalline details that coalesce into an indelible whole…Readers looking for a ‘sure thing’ would be wise to cast their sights on this emerging British novelist.”
The New York Times Book Review
A deepening of the story. . . . Pemper argues that the 'crucial accomplishment' was not the list itself but 'the multifarious acts of resistance that, like tiny stones being placed into a mosaic one by one, had made the whole process possible'…Pemper devotes most of his carefully written book to the numerous small initiatives that, in his telling, played a part in the rescue effort."
