A psychological study made stomach-churningly intense by its
squalid 19th-century setting and gruesome historical milieu. Having
watched his mother die in agony from infection following a
mastectomy performed without anesthesia, Robbie conceives a violent
hatred for the surgeon, Robert Knox. After further misfortunes
leave him and his little sister Essie fending for themselves, one
step from Edinburgh's filth-laden streets, Robbie's obsession
grows-particularly after he witnesses Knox dissecting human
corpses. Morgan mirrors her riveting account of Robbie's internal
maelstrom with a plot that includes primitive surgery, vicious
poverty, drunkenness, and imprisonment, all graphically described.
In language that sometimes spins toward the poetic-Robbie's hatred
"was sleet-cold, and shaking, and full of darkness"-she casts her
tormented teenager into the company of Knox's psychopathic
"suppliers," drags him through a period of alcohol-hazed despair,
then guides him past hard, life-changing choices that ultimately
allow him to put aside his consuming rage. Here's harrowing
reading-made all the more so by the closing revelation that Knox
and his practices are drawn from life. (historical note) (Fiction.
12-15) (Kirkus Reviews)
It is Edinburgh, 1822, and young Robbie is eight years old when he
witnesses his mother's pain and subsequent death from an operation
- without anaesthetic - to remove a tumour from her breast at the
hands of Dr Knox. Haunted by this terrible event, Robbie, his
hapless father and baby sister Essie attempt to move on with their
lives. But when Robbie's father loses all their money and
disappears, Robbie is left to look after himself and his sister in
the Edinburgh slums. Somehow he falls in with Burke and Hare, the
two men whom Knox employs to 'collect' bodies for medical research.
Robbie sees a way to avenge his mother's death. Convincing himself
that Knox is having people killed for him to experiment on, Robbie
eventually confronts him. But Robbie comes to realise that for all
his hard-heartedness and corrupt methods, Knox's motives are
ultimately for the good: to improve surgical conditions, and
operate on patients with the greatest speed and therefore minimum
risk. Robbie eventually trains to be a surgeon, finally giving
meaning to his mother's tragic death.
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