Book Review: Wickett's Remedy

I am all for books with funky narrators and interesting narrative styles. Though I’m still unsure about postmodernism, I love novels that push the limits on our expectations for genre. When I picked up “Wickett’s Remedy”, I thought that I was just in for an interesting story on the Spanish influenza. Oh boy, how wrong I was! What I wound up with was a great novel about South Boston during WWI, but written in a style that includes voices from those who had already past. Additionally, the author uses a bit of a scrapbook technique that includes letters, newsletters, and newspaper clippings. All of these forms are beautifully woven into the story in a way that gives it many dimensions and a great story.

Lydia is an Irish girl from South Boston who yearns to live and work on Washington Avenue. While all of her neighbors are going about their lives in Southie, Lydia lands a job working at a famous department store on her dream street. It is there that she meets her future husband who is studying to be a doctor. However, he abandons that path when he and Lydia marry and instead decides to produce a remedy tonic. When the Spanish Influenza strikes, Lydia’s (along with the rest of the country’s) life is completely turned upside down. Her story is interspersed with newsletters regarding the world famous QD soda. These stories are masterfully braided together to reveal the full extent of Lydia’s life and losses.

To say I couldn’t put this book down is a grave understatement. This novel had come to my attention a couple of times before I finally picked it up. Even once I did, I was a bit startled by the fact that there is the complete text in the center of the page with a couple of lines of subscript in the margins of each page. It took a bit of time to figure out how to handle this but it soon became natural to read the standard text and then glance over at the marginal notes. The notes are written in the first person plural and seem to be from the viewpoint of those who have passed on. Typically, they are used as a way for secondary characters to voice how they viewed a certain situation. This is incredibly interesting because it shows the shortcomings of the overall narrator while calling into question our personal memories and their accuracy. Each chapter is constructed a bit like a scrapbook. The majority of the pages focus on the overall plot with the marginal notes supplementing it. Towards the end of each chapter, the author throws in some news clippings, letters, and various kinds of dialog. It’s a little bit of a game to try to figure out what it all means but as it comes together it’s clear that the whole book is a beautiful tapestry of narrative techniques.

As a history buff, I was extremely impressed by the amount of meticulous research the author performed. Most historical fiction focuses on a historical event but than manipulates it to fit the author’s characters and views. This is not true of “Wickett’s Remedy”. The history is not only accurate but vital to the characters and the story. The plot is not merely dropped into a certain time period but instead is about that time and the people in it. This adds a realness to the characters that is often lacking in fiction. Overall, I think that this is a fantastic book both for its story and its technique. I have no qualms recommending it to book groups, friends, family, enemies, and strangers.

-DLP