Garcia's Heart
Non-series
Liam
Durcan
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-36708-2 (0312367082)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-36708-4 (9780312367084)
Publication Date: November 2007
List Price: $23.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Neurologist Patrick Lazerenko travels to The Hague to witness the war crimes trial of his beloved mentor, Hernan García, a Honduran doctor accused of involvement in torture. Driven by his own youthful memories of the man and his family, Lazerenko is determined to get to the truth behind the shocking accusations, even as the prosecution and a relentless journalist suspect Patrick of hiding information. The defense has its own ideas for Patrick, hoping to use his latest research to help vindicate García. As Patrick struggles with his conscience, and the pressures from the neuroeconomics company he abandoned in Boston, he must also contend with seeing García’s daughter, his former lover, and the surprising influence a shady advocacy group seems to have over her, and with the fact García himself is refusing to speak, to anyone.
Review:
In his day job Montreal resident Liam Durcan is an Assistant Professor
at McGill University and a neurologist at the Montreal Neurological
Hospital. In his debut novel Garcia’s
Heart he has transformed his knowledge of his world of
medicine and his observations of humanity at large into a compelling
story that has won him the Arthur Ellis 2008 Best First Novel award.
Durcan’s novel is set against an extremely large canvas, a
trial for crimes against humanity for the so-called Angel of
Lepaterique at the War Crimes Tribunal building in Churchillplein in
Den Haag, Netherlands. The Angel - a sobriquet from a book title about
him - is a former Honduran cardiologist, Hernan Garcia de la Cruz, the
mentor of Dr. Patrick Lazerenko, formerly of Montreal and now a
Bostonian, and he stands accused of medical torture, murder and crimes
against humanity. Doubly motivated by curiosity and loyalty to the
Garcia family, the members of which he has not seen for several years,
Lazerenko has come to the trial at the defence attorney’s
request as a potential witness. Lazerenko could testify as the Garcia
siblings Maria, his ex-lover, Nina, her younger sister, and Roberto,
his continuing antagonist, hope, and the father’s lawyer
cajoles, as an expert witness in the application of neuroscientific
principles to explain the elder Garcia’s apparently
out-of-character behaviour. It is a daunting task and one for which
Lazerenko who has turned from medicine to marketing, has little stomach
for, and even less assurance of success, especially since a
suspiciously deteriorating Garcia has steadfastly refused to speak to
anyone or to testify on his own behalf. And while the crimes against
Garcia are unveiled in almost slow motion revelations through shocking
eye-witness testimonies and detailed references to passages of a
best-selling journalist’s book about the alleged perpetrator,
Lazerenko must confront his own demons, real, imaginary, long forgotten
or recently remembered.
Durcan’s book is saturated with the drizzle of the Den Haag
November weather, the bleakness of the trial and its crush of evidence
against the accused, and the futility of Lazerenko’s attempts
to re-establish his recollected relationships between himself and the
Garcias for “he did need the Garcias now, as much as he had
needed them then.” Former lover Celia and he are
“little more than strangers now,” and she has a
two-year-old son in tow but no husband in sight. Nina the youngest of
the three siblings now oversees the family’s expanded food
store after the death of her mother, incarceration of her father,
disinterest of her sister and ineptitude of her brother. And Roberto,
ever the one to use his fists instead of his brain has sucker-punched
Lazerenko, leaving him bruised, unconscious and briefly hospitalized in
the infirmary of the Tribunal building where he is cared for by a
doctor “under his white coat of industriousness.”
Between healing and recalling the way they all once were when the
licenceless Garcia clandestinely offered medical services in the rear
of the Montreal corner grocery store, Le Depanneur Mondial, that he ran
after fleeing the Honduras, Lazerenko weighs his emotional turmoil
against his need to manage via increasingly annoying emails the
problems of his Neuronaut biotech company with its “cognitive
approach to marketing.” With surgical precision and intense
psychological insight Durcan expertly probes and bares the hearts,
minds and intents of his characters as Lazerenko tries to make sense of
his life and Garcia struggles to deal with his. It is a fascinating
operation with heart-rending conclusions for all concerned.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Garcia's Heart.
Review
Copyright © 2008 — M. Wayne Cunningham
— All
Rights Reserved
Reprinted with Permission
Omnimystery keywords for Garcia's Heart ...
Location(s) referenced: The Hague, The Netherlands, Boston.