Stella Bain
Anita Shreve
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0316098892
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
"Shreve's 17th novel is a tragic yet hopeful story of love, memory, loss, and rebuilding....The novel is both tender and harsh....Shreve's thoughtful, provocative historical tale has modern resonance." ---Publishers Weekly
Stella Bain has no memory of her past when she wakes up in a hospital bed in Marne, France. It is 1916, and she wears the uniform of a British war nurse but speaks with an American accent. As soon as she is able, Stella sets out for London, where she hopes to find answers. What she discovers-with the help of Dr. August Bridge, who takes an interest in her case-both shocks and startles. As Stella's memories come racing back, she must undertake a journey across the ocean to confront the haunted past of the woman she used to be.
In this gripping historical drama that transports us from Europe to America and back again, Anita Shreve weaves an engrossing tale about love and memory, set against the backdrop of a war that devastated an entire generation.
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screams are louder than the patients’. The surgeon’s job is beyond belief, a hell on earth worse than any hell imagined. Stella wants to know how many of them go mad, all sensibility and religion violently stripped away during the endless succession of amputations. Always look a man in the eye, no matter how terrible the wound. This the English sister teaches, orders, her to do. The wounded’s journey is long: from the trenches of no-man’s-land to the aid post to the field dressing station to the
inside, their outer garments beaded up with water. Dr. Bridge has made arrangements with a rear admiral he knows for a noon appointment at the Admiralty. Between them, it has been decided that Albion Tillman will keep Dr. Bridge and Stella waiting in an area through which most personnel pass either going to or coming from the canteen during the lunch hour. The delay will be tedious, but it is, after all, the point of the excursion: Stella will have an opportunity to scan the passersby for the man
quickly. Of course, it produced only the one cup, which was hard to touch without gloves, but I have to say it was the best cup of tea I think I’ve ever had.” “Ingenious,” Etna says. “I think we’ll have to let that count as two beautiful things. The design of the equipment and the taste of the tea. Anything beautiful counts, yes? Taste? Scent?” “And you?” Etna tells him of the rainbow and the cross. “I haven’t ruined it for you, have I? Making your pastime a game?” “Not at all. I’m highly
“Well, I am your mother, and though I really didn’t feel confident about being an artist in the past, I am one now.” “Can you do that?” he asked. “Just decide to become an artist?” “Well, you could. It’s better if you feel you have some talent.” “Are you any good?” “I think so, yes.” “I play the piano,” he said. “I started this year. I’m quite good.” “Are you?” Etna asked, suppressing a smile. She would start by taking her son as seriously as he took himself. “I shouldn’t go visiting my
Phillip,” he says. “It was a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you well.” August stands. Samuel tells Phillip that he will be back. When the men are gone, Etna adjusts her chair and moves the table a bit so that she is sitting across from Phillip. “I’ve been in America gathering my children.” “Samuel says you lost your memory.” “I thought my name was Stella Bain.” “I’m happy for you that you have your children back.” “Your face is very beautiful,” she says, gazing at his handsome features.
