A stunning historical novel of passion, reason and hidden corruption set in 1790s Scotland
Touching Distance
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
'Life is dark in this Enlightenment-era novel. As Dr Alec Gordon's patients die from puerperal fever, his marriage dies from neglect.'
-- The Times
-- The Times
Book Description
It is 1790. After ten years’ training in the great medical schools of Europe, Alec Gordon has returned to Scotland to take up the post of Physician to the Aberdeen Dispensary. Alec has ambitious plans for modernizing medical practice in the town, starting with the local midwives, whose ignorance and old-fashioned methods appal him. But Alec’s dreams of progress are thrown into disarray when a mysterious disease suddenly strikes the town, attacking and killing every newly delivered mother for miles around. Alec alone recognizes it as childbed fever, a disease more deadly than the plague, a condition that has baffled the greatest physicians of the age, an illness with no known cause and no known cure. Desperate to save his patients’ lives, Alec sets out on an astonishing medical quest to conquer the disease. But while Alec struggles to find solutions that lie far in the future, his wife Elizabeth is increasingly lost in the past, prey to terrifying memories of her childhood in Antigua. As she knows and he will learn, some diseases lie beyond the reach of reason. Based on a true story, Touching Distance is a stunning historical novel that brings to life a fascinating period in world history, exploring the tragic limitations of knowledge and the deep-seated tension between reason and passion in the Age of Enlightenment. ‘Beautifully worked. It is a book about the shockingly intimate, but it has an epic feel’ Hilary Mantel In 2009, Touching Distance was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize and won the 2009 Medical Journalists' Association Open Book Award.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The story is set at a very exciting time in the development of medicine, with great discoveries taking place in areas such as vaccination and the spread of infection. However, the new techniques which Dr Alec Gordon is keen to implement don't go down very well with superstitious local folk and the medical establishment alike. Despite this hostility, his quest to discover what is killing these new mothers turns into an obsession, to the detriment of his family and career.
Meanwhile his wife Elizabeth is dealing with her own demons, with frequent flashbacks to a childhood dominated by her brutal father. Despite, or perhaps because of her troubles, Elizabeth comes across as cold and aloof and at times I found it hard to warm to her or sympathise with her plight.
What made the book especially interesting for me was the fact that it's based on a true story. In her Author's Note, Rebecca Abrams tells us that the real Alexander Gordon's 'Treatise on the Epidemic Puerpural Fever' became a recognised and respected text many years after his death and he is credited with being years ahead of his time in understanding how infection spreads.
Quite a slow, thoughtful book in terms of pace, but I liked the character of Alec and found the subject matter very interesting. Oh, a warning to those of you of a squeamish disposition - the book is quite gory and distinctly 'gynaecological' in places, with births, amputations and cataract operations sans anaesthetic portrayed in all their glory!
Meanwhile his wife Elizabeth is dealing with her own demons, with frequent flashbacks to a childhood dominated by her brutal father. Despite, or perhaps because of her troubles, Elizabeth comes across as cold and aloof and at times I found it hard to warm to her or sympathise with her plight.
What made the book especially interesting for me was the fact that it's based on a true story. In her Author's Note, Rebecca Abrams tells us that the real Alexander Gordon's 'Treatise on the Epidemic Puerpural Fever' became a recognised and respected text many years after his death and he is credited with being years ahead of his time in understanding how infection spreads.
Quite a slow, thoughtful book in terms of pace, but I liked the character of Alec and found the subject matter very interesting. Oh, a warning to those of you of a squeamish disposition - the book is quite gory and distinctly 'gynaecological' in places, with births, amputations and cataract operations sans anaesthetic portrayed in all their glory!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By S. Commins
Format:Hardcover
This is a remarkably crafted and finely balanced novel, which has both a vivid setting and an intensely personal tale. The author weaves the details of different threads of the personal lives of the main characters that bring Alec and Elizabeth Gordon to life within the world of 1790 Aberdeen. She captures the feel of life in a different time, without ever losing the details and depth of Alec and Elizabeth's lives. The novel effectively relates how time does not necessarily move in one direction, as childhood memories reappear at different points of the novel, in ways that illuminate the choices made by Alec and Elizabeth.
The world of Aberdeen is alive with the old traditions and the emergence of the Scottish (and wider) Enlightenment. Echoes of wider debates over science and belief quietly emerge through the novel. The cost of childbirth in illness or death of the mother was common (and still is in many countries, as the author notes in her post-script), and Alec's quest for the cause of maternal deaths puts him in conflict with established medical and midwife traditions.
The tension between Alec's dedication to his patients and his increasing distance from his wife echoes the painful life experience that often we end up fighting for something that is 'right' in a way that comes at a great price in other parts of our lives.
The world of Aberdeen is alive with the old traditions and the emergence of the Scottish (and wider) Enlightenment. Echoes of wider debates over science and belief quietly emerge through the novel. The cost of childbirth in illness or death of the mother was common (and still is in many countries, as the author notes in her post-script), and Alec's quest for the cause of maternal deaths puts him in conflict with established medical and midwife traditions.
The tension between Alec's dedication to his patients and his increasing distance from his wife echoes the painful life experience that often we end up fighting for something that is 'right' in a way that comes at a great price in other parts of our lives.
By Rich
Format:Paperback
Women are dying after childbirth. The attending physician thinks he knows why, but can he get anyone to listen to him?
Quietly moving story about the frustations of medical knowledge coming up against ignorance and a little bit of superstition.
The atmosphere and sense of time and place is excellent, the characters are interesting, though it seems the sub-plot involving the wife is there to provide some melodrama for the climax. I also found the authors choice of writing in the third person present tense, to be a problem. At times this reads more like a biography and I felt I was not in 'touching distance' of the characters and events to be genuinely involved in the story. Not a bad read but it just didn't quite get there. Worth a look though.
Quietly moving story about the frustations of medical knowledge coming up against ignorance and a little bit of superstition.
The atmosphere and sense of time and place is excellent, the characters are interesting, though it seems the sub-plot involving the wife is there to provide some melodrama for the climax. I also found the authors choice of writing in the third person present tense, to be a problem. At times this reads more like a biography and I felt I was not in 'touching distance' of the characters and events to be genuinely involved in the story. Not a bad read but it just didn't quite get there. Worth a look though.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ever so slightly disappointing
I bought this used on Amazon and expected to thoroughly enjoy it as I'm from Aberdeen (where the book is set)and I do like historical drama/novels from another time. Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2010 by S. Smith
2.0 out of 5 stars
not bad but not brilaint
i picket up htis book on holiday to a realtives, that lives in the middle of no were, i was drawn in by the cover and a want to read a work of fiction based inhistory and as i have... Read more
Published on 20 Jun 2010 by Dotty Landsdown
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but not one for squeamish readers!
This is a really interesting book - you learn a lot about life in Scotland centuries ago with little understanding of medicine and disease. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2010 by H. Butcher
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching Distance
I thought this book was first class. I thoroughly enjoyed it. For the first time in ages I didn't want to put a book down. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2010 by J. Barrett
4.0 out of 5 stars
Touching Distance
This book gives a very accurate view of life in Aberdeen as it would have been in 1790, together with an understanding of medical knowledge at that time. Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2010 by Charles Shepherd
5.0 out of 5 stars
brechin bookworm
This is a must read book a true story concerning the man who first discovered why so many women were dying of childbirth fever set in Aberdeen it is wonderfully wrtten and can... Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2010 by N. H. Mcleay
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book of the Year
Facinating and true story - anyone who is interested in medicine, birth and history should read this - beautifully written.
Published on 5 Feb 2010 by J. P. Steinberg
5.0 out of 5 stars
Touching distance, by Rebecca Abrams
A gripping medical history drama, well worth reading for its educational value as well as for pure interest and enjoyment. One of the best books I have read so far this year.
Published on 16 Sep 2009 by S. Klein
4.0 out of 5 stars
one to curl up with on a sunday afternoon
I have just finished reading this book and I enjoyed it.
The story tells of a doctor in Aberdeen in 1790, who is perplexed by an outbreak of pluerperal fever within the town... Read more
The story tells of a doctor in Aberdeen in 1790, who is perplexed by an outbreak of pluerperal fever within the town... Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2009 by T-bone
2.0 out of 5 stars
Missed chance to make it a great page-turner.
This book was very disappointing. First of all, every chapter was about 3 pages long, then jumped to a new subject, so I never truly got into the mood of the story. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2009 by Kate D, Bromley, Kent
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Medical
- Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Mystery
- Books > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Erotica > Adult Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Historical
- Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction
- Books > Fiction > Medical
- Books > Fiction > Women Writers & Fiction > Women's Literary Fiction
- Books > Romance > Adult & Contemporary
- Books > Romance > Historical
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
