Customer Reviews

Wickett's Remedy: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wickett's rememedy is awkward and weird and perfect. It's ridiculous and sad and so very engaging. Another reviewer complained that the cosmic perspective of the novel dwarfed Lydia Wickett's experiences, and I think that's exactly right, and just as it should be. The novel isn't really about telling any particular person's story. The novel is much more about how life unfolds senselessly and uncontrollably; how very little is within our control. Stupid decisions work out well, painstaking decisions work terribly. But in the end, everyone ends up in the same place, and every experience is precious. It's deeper and more mature than Bee Season, in which every character was desperately trying to find some greater order in the universe, around which they could form their lives, and that greater order was strongly implied.

Myla Goldberg has written a charming, quirky and strange book (just look at the front cover). This is not a conventional novel but a creative one if the reader gives it a chance. The central event of the novel is the influenza pan-epidemic during World War I as seen through the eyes of a married couple in Boston and of the souls who have perished of the flu in 1918.

Ms. Goldberg stretches out her book to the 1990's by the device of following the strange corporate history of the husband's invention, Wickett's Remedy. While the story covers a lot of ground (there is a sub-plot involving unethical medical testing by the US Government), the characters, even as they die off, are compelling. In a book about death, this wonderful novel reaffirms life in its own fashion. For further historical background, the reader is referred to John Barry's "The Great Influenza" which tells how 20 million persons worldwide perished from this deadly virus.

There is absolutely no doubt that Goldberg is a masterful prose writer. Bee Season was not a fluke, and she demonstrates that she's more than capable of getting inside the heads of disparate characters-- not just Jewish characters from this century and people who might be like her, but people separate from her in time and ethnicity. Whether or not you end up loving this novel's plot, her sentences and descriptions are really gorgeous.

This time she writes about Lydia Kilkenny, an Irish girl from Boston's South End at the turn of the century, who becomes a shop girl at Gilchrist's in a swankier part of town, is courted by and marries Henry Wickett, a shy medical student who quits to sell "Wickett's Remedy." Henry dies of illness, and Lydia becomes a nurse during the influenza epidemic of 1918, taking part in a failed experiment on Gallup's island. Meanwhile, her husband's "business partner" has taken the original remedy and turned it into a bestselling soda, and we see letters from Lydia in the twenties trying to get some money owed her out of Driscoll, as well as Driscoll's letters to his dead wife and son, and various press releases and newsletters from QD soda which seems to be a sort of cult (I've been to the coke museum in Atlanta and it doesn't seem that even coke has the same weird culture Goldberg imagines for QD soda). Documents from 1993 describe a jubilee, and Driscoll's confession that a dead woman invented the soda (but a newsletter suggests this was treated as a joke, though not clearly by his adopted son who according to dcouments from the nursing home has since neglected Driscoll's care).

Lydia's story also has marginalia from the whisperings of dead people commenting and contradicting on the narrative. I loved that. I was a lot less interested in all of the QD soda materials and tended to skim them. Each chapter ended with these, as well as excerpts from newspaper articles about the epidemic, and odd unrelated sequences of dialogue from patients, soldiers, random people. Very post-modern, but the only part of it that really worked for me was the marginalia. I was a lot more interested in Lydia than in Driscoll.

But Lydia takes up 90% of the book and I found her story very satisfying somehow. OK, maybe it's true there isn't a lot of tension, but I really liked her and felt for her as she saw loved ones die and cared for soldiers she feared might die. Goldberg really evokes the time and place very well, and this is a worthwhile novel!

Wickett's Remedy represents an idea that had a lot of potential but which never fully evolved into the novel it might have been. I have to give Goldberg credit for attempting some very ambitious narrative techniques (the marginal voices of the dead, the epistolary interludes from the present, while most of the novel proper takes place in the past), but they never fully mesh, and consequently, they feel more like a gimmick than a groundbreaking new narrative style.

For me, the novel proper (following the story of Lydia and the 1918 influenza epidemic) was FAR more interesting than the present-day story of how Wickett's Remedy was stolen and developed into a successful soda product. And the marginal voices of the dead were just that -- marginal. I never could make up my mind what I thought of that, which in itself is probably a sign that whatever Goldberg intended was never completely successful. At least, for me.

I understand that Ms. Goldberg substantially rewrote the novel for the paperback edition -- a rather daring choice -- but I can't speak to that edition. My comments pertain to the original hardcover. And for my money, it's nowhere close to her first novel, Bee Season, which I absolutely loved! Wicket's Remedy was interesting, but it never quite came together, and I never felt fully invested in the outcome of the story. A pity.

This book was very well written, and was a very engaging story. I must say honestly though, that I often didn't enjoy the "newspaper articles" posted throughout, though I realize they relate directly to the time period. What I found most interesting is the "whisperings" of "Us" that can be found in the margins of the pages. It is intersting to see how others percieved an event as compared to the main character, and how their after-death memories and "whisperings" seemed to influence, in some small way, the world of Lydia. The story itself was great but I felt as though it lacked an adequate conclusion. Another chapter or two would have left a greater feeling of closure. Otherwise, an amazing piece!

Wickett's Remedy is the kind of novel you feel awful giving a bad review to. It's a risky novel for Goldberg in many ways, and one wants to give her lots of credit for the chances she takes--moving away from the family study of her oh-so-popular first book, using marginal snippets of narration from a chorus of the dead, interspersing the story's main narrative with newspaper clippings, letters, brief conversations, and promotional chitchat. But in the end, the risks proved too much and the novel fails, the parts never creating a compelling sum.
Wickett's follows Lydia Kilkenney, a young woman of "Southy" who in 1914 marries up in society via Harry Wickett, a shy, sickly medical student who meets her at her salesclerk job then wins her over through his passionate love letters. Soon after their wedding, Harry decides to drop out of med school and create Wickett's Remedy, whose medicine would not be in the good-tasting liquid Lydia creates, but in the letters he sends along with the tonic. Eventually, the business and their lives are interrupted by war and pandemic and Lydia must deal with first Harry's death, then others' deaths equally close to her. In this she finds her new calling--becoming a volunteer nurse, first at the local hospital, then by chance (actually mostly by default) at an experimental flu study (using criminals--deserters--as voluntary human subjects) on nearby Gallups Island. Her story is paralleled by the history of QD Soda, the soda Wickett's Remedy eventually was turned into by an unscrupulous businessman who had become Harry's partner just before his death. This parallel plot unfolds through a variety of narratives--letters, promotional pitches, etc. Finally, Goldberg also employs a chorus of the dead who comment on Lydia's narrative in marginal snippets, conveying the cloudiness and untrustworthiness of memory/perception.
Unfortunately, the more creative narratives seldom add much to the story's impact and in fact often detract from it. The QD soda plot line in particular is overly intrusive and quickly becomes annoying. Though it gathers some thematic and emotional weight towards the end, it didn't seem worth the journey to get there. The chorus of the dead is certainly less annoying: one because there is simply less of it, two because the comments are all very brief, and three because there are some nice comical moments and even some poignant ones. But again, in the end, they didn't add much and so the result didn't seem worth the distraction, not only from the basic plot but also from the plot's emotional impact.
Finally, even Lydia herself failed to compel. There were certainly moments of sharp emotional impact, deeply poignant moments, nicely written moments of insight, but as a character she never felt truly, fully there. She never felt able to carry the narrative on her shoulders. Part of it was she was somewhat buried beneath the other narratives--QD Soda, the historical news clippings and conversations, the chorus speech. Part of it was the episodic nature of the story, so that just as we get to know Lydia the Southy girl she becomes Lydia the young wife in a higher class of society. Then just as we become interested in that character she becomes Lydia the widow and then in short order Lydia the further grieving then Lydia the nurse's aide to a faceless mass of dying then Lydia the nurse to a smaller, more individual group then Lydia the new romantic etc. All of these incarnations deserved more space, more time spent with them but since we're never given that time or space, Lydia herself seems too removed.
Again, one respects the willingness to try new forms of narrative, and the research is clearly well done with regard to the historical aspects of duel plague of war and flu in early 20th century Boston, but while giving her a well-deserved nod for literary talent and nerve, I can't give her credit for creating a very compelling story, either in terms of plot or emotion.

There are numerous delightful aspects to this novel, especially the attention to historical detail and the ingenious "whisperings" in the margins.

Unfortunately, Goldberg has added so many different strands that the ultimate work doesn't hang together well. There are too many different story lines, and as a result I found myself ignoring one that later proved relevant, and distracting by the irrelevant story of QD Soda. It was unfortunate, because the central themes, the story of Lydia Wickett in 1917-18, the Gallups Island experiment, and the role of memory and history, were all wonderful. They just got buried under the weight of all the other strands. If QD Soda had been edited out, one might have been able to appreciate the newspaper articles and other tidbits; as it was, it became an overly busy patchwork, hard to appreciate much of anything.

This book is a nice, slow, home-cooked meal. You'll do an injustice if you try to hurry through it in one long sitting. The main character, Lydia, comes of age sweetly although her life seems like one tragedy after another. I didn't find her to be a passive character as did one of the other reviewers. Impeccably researched, very well written, and altogether quirky, my only complaint is that it ended a bit too abruptly.

I have been a fan of Myla Goldberg since reading her first novel a few years ago. In some ways, I enjoyed the first third of this novel even more ... Goldberg's depiction of Henry's courtship of Lydia is simply lovely in a romantic and somewhat old-fashioned sense. Ms. Goldberg's marginal notes, while distracting at time, are often used "to lovely effect" (as one reviewer phrased it). Here is one example: ". . . It is practically impossible to retain the homeliness of unfamiliar features once they have grown dear." And Ms. Goldberg's writing is extremely moving; the pages describing Henry's illness and death are heartwrenchingly beautiful. Unlike other reviewers here, I did not find Lydia to be a passive character.

All that said, I was disappointed at the turn of plot following Henry's death. The marginal notes and subplot about QD Soda quickly grew wearisome. Some of the events that occurred at Gallups Island (at least as depicted in this novel) stretch the imagination. Still, I would recommend this novel, just to read of the romance between Henry and Lydia.

Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, was one of the best firsts I'd read in years. Instead of sticking with what worked beautifully the first time around, Goldberg resorted to a couple of clunky contrivances to spoil the formula in Wickett's Remedy. The novel starts out strong, with interesting characters and a compelling historical story line. Sadly, the interruptions of Goldberg's annoying margin commentary and the inscrutable QD Soda newsletter provide nothing more than a distraction. And by the end of the novel, even the story line gives out, stranded along with the protagonist, Lydia Wickett, on an island where both the good work she hopes to do and the story Goldberg begins with such promise amount to nothing much.