The Physician of Sanlúcar - Softcover

FALLA, JONATHAN

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906582386 ISBN 13: 9781906582388

Publisher: Aurora Metro Books, 2013

Synopsis

Mattieu Macanan has fled his home in France, to work as a doctor in a remote region of South America where his past is unknown. There he tends to the local tribes and tries to avoid contact with European settlers. When Silke Khan and her husband Theo fly into his world with plans to run an airmail service in the area his reclusive life is irrevocably altered. While Mattieu struggles to resist his attraction to Silke, hostilities created by the coming war escalate, drawing the local people into their orbit and forcing the doctor to decide which side he is on. But what is he hiding from? Can he really help the local tribes survive the disease and trouble the Europeans unleash? In offering refuge to Silke Khan, has Mattieu finally committed a fatal move?

About this title

Review

A runaway doctor, his married mistress, her gay-leaning husband, noble tribes-people: these, plus the craggy, rubble-strewn Patagonian wilderness, and a villain of Scottish extraction, are the characters. We begin on the cusp of the First World War. Matthieu Macanan, a young French physician in the backstreets of Punta Arenas, tending the woes of native Indians, raddled farmers, and the sex-starved sailors there to avail of visiting whores. Matthieu is summoned to Tierra del Fuego to treat sick natives. There he encounters the sheepman, Lovell, who goads him concerning his allegedly premature flight from university, and questions his right to practise. The arrival of Austrians, the Kahns, breaks the novel s stasis, and the cloistered, secretive doctor is soon prised open by Mrs Kahn, the sylphlike Silke, who, with her husband, plans to link Patagonia s communities. Their biplane, the fragile Dove, is a daring, almost incongruous symbol of their hopes. It s a modus operandi carried out with poetic subtlety, hard to spot because the writing itself is so joyously accomplished, light, almost airborne. And witty too, with a wry, anachronistic treat for fans of the movie, Casablanca, dropped like a feather to tickle the fancy. A smirk in the slipstream. Go, discover! --The Scotsman

A good read....the relationship between the physician and the German lady was exquisitely drawn....it built up and you felt the power of the attraction.... treatment of the Indians was brilliant...something to chew on --Twickenham Book Reading Group

Such an interesting book, so beautifully written, with all the atmosphere of that part of the world. You could almost feel that you were there...So well constructed in form and builds up to a denouement in a satisfying way. All the threads came together. --readingmatters

About the Author

The Physician of Sanlucar is Jonathan Falla's fourth novel, after Blue Poppies, Poor Mercy and Glenfarron. Jamaican-born Falla lives in Scotland where he is director of studies for the St Andrews Creative Writing Summer School. He has won a Creative Scotland Award, a PEN story prize, and other awards for his fiction, drama and film writing. See www.jonathanfalla.co.uk.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1906582386
• ISBN 13: 9781906582388
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226