|
"
When U.S. Navy doctor Lily Townsend returned from the Vietnam War, she didn't realize she
had brought the
war home with her, along with the nightmares, the sweats and the ghosts of the dead.
Lily's Ghost is a powerful novel of hope and goodness, anger and despair,
as a woman copes with the demons of
war and the very real fear that she will lose the one thing she loves the most.
Cheryl Drake Harris lives in Gardiner, and this
is her first book.
In 1968 Lily was a military doctor struggling to save lives and keep her sanity during the
bloody Tet Offensive. The horrible things she saw in the field hospital are burned into
her memory, visions of death, suffering, and hopelessness that haunt her every moment.
Ten years later she lives in Maine, is married to a man she does not love, and has a
4-yearold son whom she adores.
She no longer practices medicine, prefers darkness to light, and is spooked by loud
noises. Other strange behaviors also adversely affect her marriage, but most folks seem tolerant of her
eccentricities.
With vivid imagery and stark realism, Harris tells how Lily's marriage fails, and how her
husband declares her
an unfit mother in a bitter custody battle for their son. Her world falls apart, she
loses her son, and is spiraling
downward in desperation. Fortunately, Lily is stronger than she thinks,
and aided by an unlikely friend who has unpleasant secrets
of his own, she confronts her fears and begins to rebuild her life.
This is a riveting and dramatic story, filled with painful memories, gruesome images of
war's
human destruction, and the dramatic portrayal of a woman's deteriorating mental state
and her inspirational recovery.
"
Bill Bushnell lives and writes in Harpswell.
- Kennebec Journal, Sunday, February 4, 2007.
|
