The Crimson Portrait

After reading The Fig Eater and being impressed with it I sought out The Crimson Portrait. Since it was not for sale around here I ordered it on line. I find both novels a fascinating combination of the harsh realities of their times -historically both are fascinating periods for me-and the surreal, at times, the supernatural, aspects of the situations Shield's characters are immersed. Each character has a layer of personality which conflicts with the facade of their daily living. More so in The Crimson Portrait than in The Fig Eater, which was more "spiritual/mystical " in a sense. I find Shield's writing style easy to read and like the way she divides her chapters into what is vignette. Her lovers are not cut and dry but complexes of emotions and intelligence. Motives are often found to confound the characters themselves in the final analysis. She confronts the science of the times with the arts creating an odd combination which can fascinate and repel all at the same time. I confess I found the endings to both novels,especially in The Fig Eater, somewhat bizarre-less so The Crimson Portrait. Her novels,especially, this one gives one pause to contemplate which is why I wonder what her next subject will be. Her novels are very different approaches to subjects, and depending on your own unique tastes, can be enjoyed or hated. I look forward to the world she will create in her next novel.

At some point in our lives, all of us have found fault with our own faces. Maybe it was the passing anxiety of youthful acne, freckles, oddly paired dimples, or stick-out ears. Perhaps it's the lifelong irritation of inherited imperfections, like a crooked nose, puffy eyelids, receding chin, sagging jowls, or turkey neck. Yet, as dissatisfying as we sometimes find ourselves when looking in the mirror, I can wager a week's worth of coffee breaks that every last one of us would passionately miss our flawed "ordinary" faces if suddenly they weren't there anymore. In THE CRIMSON PORTRAIT, author Jody Shields delves into medical history from the Great War (1914-1918) to build her remarkable, often arrestingly beautiful romantic novel around the traumatic post-combat lives of British soldiers whose faces were horribly disfigured by explosion wounds. Amid the emotional, spiritual and physical pain endured by these sequestered patients (even their families were barred from seeing them), we meet an exceptional community of medical and physical caregivers. Thrown together in unexpected assignments at a commandeered English country house-turned-hospital, they muddle through their own fears, uncertainties, relationships and obsessions, along with the estate's owner --- the recent widow of yet another war casualty --- who is still suffering the initial throes of grief and denial. Shields unravels their intersecting stories with a powerful delicacy one might never expect to find within such a potentially grotesque theme. She does it so well, in fact, that it is difficult to tell who the primary players really are. There is the seemingly tireless surgeon who devotes his entire short-lived retirement to repairing soldiers' faces; the dentist-turned-bone sculptor, whose eastern European past remains a mystery; the deposed "chatelaine" tortured by fleeting glimpses of her dead young husband; the pragmatic artist whose skill at drawing surgical procedures competes with her anguished affection for two lovers; the teenaged draft dodger who yearns to be a surgeon; and finally, the "model" patient whose poetic good looks were blasted away forever in a trench across the English Channel. Perhaps the realization that they are all superbly crafted composite characters is what adds so much to the strength of this story, which transcends mere fiction by a quantum leap. While war has often served to accelerate the development of surgical "miracles" that have become medical standbys in peacetime, no other injuries have ever posed challenges as technically difficult or as heart-rending as those affecting the human face. We may be brought up on the truism that appearance is only superficial and that the "real person" within is most important, but as recovering soldiers sketched in THE CRIMSON PORTRAIT learn, nothing will ostracize a human being faster than the sight of his or her destroyed face. Except for a brief glimpse or two of the appalled "normal" residents i

In 1915, though grieving the death of her spouse Charles in the combat on the continent, widow Catherine completed his dream by converting their massive estate just outside London into a military hospital that specializes in facial injuries, a discipline with little known knowledge. However, Catherine keeps to herself unable to meet with the doctors, the staff, or the patients. In spite of the friendliness of the person in charge Dr. McCleary and other staffers, Catherine avoids everyone. That is until a patient wearing a mask Julian begins to force her to move past her grief. She begins to see Julian a mapmaker and decides he is perfect for her especially if Dr. McCleary can reconstruct Julian's visage to look like Charles' face. THE CRIMSON PORTRAIT is a fascinating historical fiction novel that brings to life post combat medicine and its link to portrait painting especially facial reconstructive surgery during its early days. The characters drive this superb tale especially of a doctor, a reclusive female patron, and a patient as each seems real bringing to life the horrors of war in 1915 England. Reactions to Julian by other people add to the feel of a terrific war drama in which the fighting is elsewhere, but the results are summed up in this country home. Harriet Klausner

Shields is a significant writer who has bravely tackled a difficult subject, the destructive nature of war and the emotional complexities of trauma. Both off-putting and riveting, the novel takes place in London in 1915, World War I decimating London and moving closer to the countryside, where a remote estate has been offered by Catherine, a recent widow, to be used as a military hospital. Still reeling from the loss of her beloved husband, Charles, Catherine has not yet accepted the reality of her situation: "I have simply lost tolerance for damaged things." The hospital staff is headed by Dr. McCleary, who concentrates on patients with severe facial injuries, dedicating his talents and research to restoring the men's faces and thus the direction of their grossly altered futures. With great compassion, McCleary accepts the widow's generosity in spite of reservations, driven to find a way to heal these injuries: "Truth won't heal these men." Catherine is drawn to a young soldier, Julius, layers of gauze hiding the wreckage beneath. In her desperation to recapture Charles, Catherine seizes upon an opportunity, persuading McCleary to attempt an innovative technique and restore Julian to some semblance of humanity, confusing her own yearnings with his likeness to her husband, or at least her perception of it. In her heart, Catherine admits her duplicity, but is unable to deny herself. Other figures in the novel are of equal importance, most notably a foreign doctor, Kazanjian, and his assistant, Anna Coleman, an artist. Coleman sketches the images of the men's damaged faces in detail of the doctor's work: an illustrated text of facial injuries at a time when very little has been accomplished in the area of facial reconstruction. Anna's work is priceless, documenting the extraordinary creativity of the artists and surgeons during the war. Anna and Kazanjian are instrumental in McCleary's work to restore Julius's face. Anna stands by helplessly as the widow pursues her illusions, but it is the artist, firmly grounded in reality, who finds the comfort and understanding denied by a brutal war. As in The Fig Eater, Shields' prose is at times ethereal, showing a fine sensitivity for the psychological effects of physical damage, contrasted with the very difficult details of the injuries and treatment methodologies. Unerringly, the emotional and scientific collide as the characters grapple with the impossible, lives forever changed and psyches unable to heal. The descriptions of medical procedures, while informational, provide a disturbing view of the horrific damage done to young men who are irreparably transformed into frightening visions of their former selves: "We see them as gargoyles, and this completes the injury the enemy has done." No matter the compassion and drive to recreate what is destroyed, once shattered, whether emotional or physical, all must find a way to survive the unbearable. Luan Gaines/2006.

Reviewed by Beverly Pechin for Reader Views (11/06) It's 1915 and Catherine finds herself like one of many women, a young widow. Heartbroken and lost, she decides to honor her late husband's wishes to allow the troops to use their beautiful, sprawling mansion as a make-shift hospital. Little does she know how much her decision will change the rest of her life. As she watches her home become an absence of her former life, she slowly finds herself grasping for comfort in the dream of her dead husband. As she begins to take part in helping at the hospital, formerly her home, she sees a chance at literally being able to recreate her dead husband's image in a soldier who must undergo surgeries to restore his face. She finds herself torn between making the choice that will forever change not only her life, but the life of Julian, a young soldier who is having his face reconstructed after losing it in battle. Will she make the right choice? And will she be able to live with the choice she's made? Deep and intricate webs of deception begin to be woven as not only Catherine deals with her decision to betray the young man his right to recreating his own face again but as Anna, the artist who creates drawings of the soldiers, feels a sense of loneliness as her own husband is off in battle. Will Anna allow her feelings for a foreign doctor take her over or will she continue to try to ignore her feelings? Secrets kept amongst themselves, the doctors all seem to have something to hide that creates an inner turmoil within each of them. As they triumph in huge leaps in the area of reconstructive surgery, an area formerly left untouched by 'modern medicine', they suffer huge setbacks as their minds deal with images of horror as they repair young soldiers from the front. Shields creates characters of such depth that you realize you may never complete unpeeling their layers as you find more and more out about them throughout the novel. As your heart aches for all involved, you will find yourself questioning how strong you could be in a situation similar and learn to love each and every one of the characters, despite their flaws. An excellent story line that reads so easily you will find you've finished reading long before you're ready to close the book. With characters of such depth and reality you will continue to wonder where they went with their lives even after you close the pages. Absolutely awesome! You will want more!