RIGHT OF THIRST

Emergency physician Huyler (The Laws of Invisible Things, 2004, etc.) again makes good use of his medical background in his second novel, about a doctor seeking redemption in a devastated mountain region.

After his wife Rachel dies, Charles Anderson feels adrift. His work as a cardiologist no longer consumes him, and son Eric has been estranged by Charles’ failure to summon him home in time to say goodbye to his mother. On impulse, the dispirited doctor attends a lecture by aid worker Scott Coles, who describes his organization’s relief efforts in an unnamed country (similar to Pakistan) ravaged by a recent earthquake and in constant border conflicts with its neighbor. Charles volunteers, believing that humanitarian work might save him. This is the jumping-off point for a vivid and compassionate narrative whose alien setting and complex protagonist bring new richness to Huyler’s writing. At his volunteer post, Charles finds himself in the company of Captain Rai, a brusque military advisor, and Elise, a considerate nurse and researcher. The seven-year-old whose leg he reluctantly amputates, and an unanticipated liaison with Elise, are the unlikely purveyors of hope to the flailing protagonist. But the purpose of his journey escapes him as artillery fire arrives in lieu of refugees. “I’d come all this way for an empty tent city and a one-legged girl. A wind-scoured field of stones on the other side of the earth…My plunge into the unknown, my step into this other world, where I hoped to lose myself in an abundance of need—and so few of my hopes had come true.” Deepened by Huyler’s knowledgeable depiction of improvisational medicine and his gift for poetic narration, this is a resonant tale that eschews easy resolution.

A timely, disquieting reflection on mortality, war and the startling dichotomy between the affluent West and the impoverished Third World.