"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Lydia's experiences are annotated with marginal comments from the dead (literally marginal: the remarks are in a smaller type in the outside margins of the text). This "whispering undercurrent" rises into articulation when one of the dead feels an urge to comment on Lydia's memories. The statements of the dead can be funny or poignant (e.g. "Jefferson Carver, the Public Health Services first colored elevator operator and the car¹s fourth occupant, has become resigned to his omission from the partial memories of his white passengers."), but most often correct fine points in the narrative or complain about slights and oversights. The dead have a "shared desire: that in an unguarded moment, Our whisperings will broach a living ear." Sadly, they don't have much more to contribute than the kind of cantankerous ego-babble we expect from the living.
Although this chorus of the dead is a brave innovation, it fails Wickett¹s Remedy because the perspective of eternity lessens the force of Lydia's story. It would lessen anyone's story. It may be more realistic to view our sufferings and ambitions--our very personalities--as specks in a cosmic blur, but it puts a damper on our wilder emotions. --Regina Marler
"South Boston belonged to Lydia as profoundlyand wordlessly as her thimble finger. Her knowledge of its streets was more complete than any atlas, her mental maps reflecting changes that occurred from season to season, day to day, and hour to hour. Each time she left 28 D Street -- one among a row of identical triple-decker houses, the tenements lining the street like so many stained teeth -- her route reflected this internal almanac. . . .
For ten years this was enough. Then in fifth grade, Lydia saw a city map and realized her entire world was a mitten dangling from Boston's sleeve. Across the bridge lay Washington Street -- the longest street in all New England -- which began like any other but then continued north, a single determined thread of cobblestone that wove itself through every town from Boston to Providence. Once Lydia saw Washington Street she knew she could not allow it to exist without her.
--excerpt from Wickett's Remedy
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. Synopsis: In a multidimensional, intricately wrought narrative, Myla Goldberg leads us back to Boston in the early part of the twentieth century and into two completely captivating worlds. One is that of Lydia, an Irish American shopgirl with bigger aspirations than your average young woman from South Boston. She seems to be well on her way to the life she has dreamed of when she marries Henry Wickett, a shy medical student and the scion of a Boston Brahmin family. However, soon after their wedding, Henry abruptly quits medical school to create a mail-order patent medicine called Wicketts Remedy, and just as Lydia begins to adjust to her husbands new vocation, the infamous Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918 begins its deadly sweep across the world, irrevocably changing their lives. In a world turned almost unrecognizable by swift and sudden tragedy, Lydia finds herself working as a nurse in an experimental ward dedicated to understanding the raging epidemicthrough the use of human subjects. Meanwhile, a parallel narrative explores the world of QD Soda, the illegitimate offspring of Wicketts Remedy, stolen away by Henry Wicketts one-time business partner Quentin Driscoll, who goes about transforming it into a soft drink empire. Throughout the novel we hear from a chorus of other voices who offer a running commentary from the books margins, playing off the ongoing narrative and cleverly illuminating the slippery interplay of perception and memory. Based on years of research and evoking actual events, Wicketts Remedy perfectly captures the texture of the times and brings a colorful cast of characters vividly to lifenone more so than Lydia, a heroine as winning and appealing as Eliza, the beloved spelling champion of Bee Season. With dazzling dexterity, Goldberg has fashioned a novel that beautifully combines the intimate and the epic. Wicketts Remedy announces her arrival as a major novelist. Seller Inventory # ABE-1634414368841
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