A first novel is a brave venture. Both of these, The Strength of Bone and My Heart is Not My Own, are in their own ways laudable, yet neither, likewise, is completely free of problems.
The two books have many similarities. Each is the first novel by Canadians whose day jobs as medical doctors had them serving for a time in the countries where their stories are set—Lucie Wilk in Malawi, Michael Wuitchik in Sierra Leone. Both books similarly do something slightly disconcerting: after leading the reader to assume the tale will be about a white foreign doctor working in an African hospital, each veers sharply to offer the substantial story of black African nurses who get involved with the visiting white doctors.
The Strength of Bone begins with Torontonian Henry Bryce arriving at Malawi’s Blantyre...
Larry Krotz wrote Diagnosing the Legacy: The Discovery, Research, and Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes in Indigenous Youth.
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