Touching Distance
3/5
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About this ebook
‘Atmospheric and fascinating’ - Hilary Mantel
Shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize and winner of the Medical Journalists' - Association Open Book Award
In the winter of 1790, a mysterious and deadly disease strikes the unsuspecting town of Aberdeen. The victims are all women in the prime of life. Determined to save his patients, talented young physician Alec Gordon embarks on an astonishing medical quest. What he discovers will shake the small, close-knit community to the core and change his own life – and that of his wife and young daughter – forever.
Based on the true story of Alexander Gordon, the first person to discover that infectious diseases were transmitted by human contact, Touching Distance is a stunning historical novel set in Scotland and the West Indies in the Age of Enlightenment. It centres on a deadly epidemic without a cure, history’s very first ‘track and trace’, and Gordon’s desperate attempts to make people understand the vital importance of hand-washing and social-distancing, over a century before they were scientifically proven. A vivid portrait of a pivotal moment in world history, it is also a universal tale of intimacy and estrangement, reason and passion, corruption and courage.
The novel’s key themes include medical whistle-blowers, doctors and midwives on the frontline of a deadly disease, the battle between scientific truth and political self-interest, Britain’s deep links with colonialism and slavery, the dangerous intersection of racism and sexism, and the impact of epidemics on women. Touching Distance by Rebecca Abrams is a novel that speaks powerfully to crucial issues we are still grappling with today.
Rebecca Abrams
Rebecca Abrams is the author of both fiction and non-fiction. Her non-fiction titles include When Parents Die, a classic in its field, and Three Shoes, One Sock and No Hairbrush, the best-selling guide to having a second child. Her novel, Touching Distance, was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize and won the Medical Journalists' Association Open Book Award (2009). An award-winning journalist, Rebecca is a former columnist on the Daily Telegraph and a long-standing reviewer for the Guardian. Born in 1963, she has lived in America and Switzerland and now lives in Oxford with her husband and two children.
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Reviews for Touching Distance
14 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: Talented young doctor Alec Gordon is mystified by a fever killing otherwise healthy new mothers. His methods to treat it are greeted with scepticism and are mostly unsuccessful. His accounts show that he is treating many more patients than can afford to pay for his services, and his colleagues at the hospital are not keen on his candour and lack of politics. At home, his wife is struggling with depression and flashbacks of her life in the West Indies. Based on a true story.I know that the book is based on a true story, although you always have to wonder how much is “true story” and much is artistic licence… but the succession of deaths and the increasingly brutal methods attempting to save the mothers are shocking enough without knowing that it did actually happen! In the postscript, the author points out that the fever which was eventually discovered is still a major cause of death in less developed countries. As I found with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the historical aspect of medicine was fascinating – the ways which were accepted as best practice now seem almost barbaric. I also thought that the demonstration of the social mix was an interesting idea and well-developed: the idea of a young doctor from a poor background, with a lawyer and a farmer for brothers, marrying into a once affluent family with sugar plantations in the West Indies; the settled politics and hostility to an outsider, particularly one who won’t play by the rules, etc. I thought Alec Gordon was a bit too perfect and Elizabeth a bit too useless – in fact I found all the characters a little polarised, although Robbie was pleasantly well-rounded. Elizabeth had her own sub-story – her malaise at home, waiting for her husband to come back from house calls at the ends of the city, her detachment from her child – with which I didn’t have much patience. The marriage was depicted as very bitter, which seemed out of keeping with the two characters. A pleasant and informative read, but not about to trouble literary prize committees.