The Heart in Exile
"It was all clear now, or at least as clear as it could be. I had discovered and could explain many things, but there was so much, of course, that I could never hope to explain." - Rodney Garland, The Heart in Exile
Although this book is a mystery set in the gay community of post-World War II London, it is much more than that. It explores the nature of love and the very personal truths experienced by homosexuals, as well as the gay life, which was necessarily an underworld in London at the time. It is this second aspect of the book that allows it to rise above the average sentimental story. This book is intensely about the lives of a psychiatrist and his former lover, who was found dead from what appeared to be an overdose of sleeping pills. The doctor's investigation into what happened led to revelations about himself that profoundly affected his life.
This book, which examined the variety of homosexual life in London and offered a touching account of how one might transform his life in unexpected ways when faced with the ups and downs of daily existence, captivated me. It was both fascinating and profoundly touching.
2 comments:
Hi James, The Heart in Exile sounds very interesting and I went over to Amazon and discovered that the psychiatrist finds out about his ex lover's death from his patient who was engaged to his ex lover at the time of his death. That's quite an ethical dilemma. Can and should he be treating the patient knowing what he knows.
Hi Kathy,
In the book a young woman seeks out the psychiatrist, Dr Tony Page, after she finds an envelope with his name and address on it shortly after her fiancee's suicide. She hires him more as a detective to discover the reasons for the suicide than as a psychiatrist - and it is this that gets the plot of the book started. The bulk of the story focuses on the mystery behind that death, and the people Dr. Page meets, while the issue of some conflict with his treatment of her does not really arise.
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