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A review by britakate
Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg
"Lydia's favorite part of any parade was the marching band. Marches on the Victrola had no flash or strut: the drums did not electrify, the trumpets did not exalt, and the tubas did not pull the strings of her legs in time to the music's promise of good news just out of reach. She loved the erect carriage of the marchers in their impeccable uniforms and the proud way they held their instruments, as though each trumpet and flute and drum were incontrovertible evidence of all that had gone right with the world. As strong as her love of marching bands was her conviction that she was as indispensable to a parade's success as the marchers themselves. Without people spilling over the sidewalks and onto the street, without the crush of elbows and peanut breath and frantically waving flags, a parade was merely a contrived walk." (106)
"Sickness and need obviated convention and left, in its place, intimacy. Lydia had perceived this intimacy once before. Because she had been tending Henry, she had assumed it was conjugal but she now discovered it was universal—a shared human undercurrent detectable only when the dictates of name, sex, and social standing were effaced. Revealed, it became an embrace. Lydia had not been three hours at Carney before she knew she was meant to be a nurse." (160)
Between this and Year of Wonders, I guess it's official that I have a thing for books about plagues. I only wish the ending hadn't come so soon, or so abruptly. I could have kept right on reading for at least another 200 pages.
"Sickness and need obviated convention and left, in its place, intimacy. Lydia had perceived this intimacy once before. Because she had been tending Henry, she had assumed it was conjugal but she now discovered it was universal—a shared human undercurrent detectable only when the dictates of name, sex, and social standing were effaced. Revealed, it became an embrace. Lydia had not been three hours at Carney before she knew she was meant to be a nurse." (160)
Between this and Year of Wonders, I guess it's official that I have a thing for books about plagues. I only wish the ending hadn't come so soon, or so abruptly. I could have kept right on reading for at least another 200 pages.