Booklist Review

Danner, a physician's assistant in Oregon, offers a first novel that can be seen as a story of redemption. Many of its characters have suffered outward violence or inner doubts but have overcome or at least learned to live with their difficulties. Although much of the book consists of internal musing and emotion, its setting in a small hospital in an Indian village 10,000 feet up in the Himalayas is as striking as some of the action. Mary, a U.S. physician, comes to the hospital to continue the work of her husband, recently killed in an accident. After an uncomfortable and sobering journey, she arrives to find a note from the hospital's founding physician informing her that he will be away indefinitely. Alone except for a few local nurses and helpers, Mary immerses herself in medical and surgical activities, despite the hospital's rudimentary equipment and her lack of knowledge of the local language. Melding the humaneness of his characters and the harsh beauty of their surroundings, Danner produces a quiet, sympathetic, increasingly appealing story. --William Beatty