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The Physician of Sanlucar
This latest novel from multi-award-winning author Jonathan Falla brings to mind the fiction of Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene.
A beautifully written and absorbing story of exile and redemption set against the stark Patagonian wilderness at the start of the modern age. Matthieu Macanan has fled his home in France, to work as a doctor in a remote region of South America where his past is unknown. There he tends to the local tribes and tries to avoid contact with European settlers. When Silke Kahn and her husband Theo come into his world with plans to run an airmail service in the area, his reclusive life is irrevocably altered.
While Matthieu struggles to resist his attraction to Silke, hostilities created by the coming war escalate, drawing the local people into their orbit and forcing the doctor to decide which side he is on. But what is he hiding from? Can he really help the local tribes to survive the disease and trouble the Europeans unleash? In offering refuge to Silke Kahn, has Matthieu finally committed a fatal move?
A beautifully written and absorbing story of exile and redemption set against the stark Patagonian wilderness at the start of the modern age. Matthieu Macanan has fled his home in France, to work as a doctor in a remote region of South America where his past is unknown. There he tends to the local tribes and tries to avoid contact with European settlers. When Silke Kahn and her husband Theo come into his world with plans to run an airmail service in the area, his reclusive life is irrevocably altered.
While Matthieu struggles to resist his attraction to Silke, hostilities created by the coming war escalate, drawing the local people into their orbit and forcing the doctor to decide which side he is on. But what is he hiding from? Can he really help the local tribes to survive the disease and trouble the Europeans unleash? In offering refuge to Silke Kahn, has Matthieu finally committed a fatal move?
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2013
About the author
Jonathan Falla
26 books8 followersJonathan Falla was born in 1954 in Jamaica, where his father lectured in English Literature at the University of the West Indies. The family returned to England a year later on a boat laden with bananas.
During the 1990s Jonathan was writing drama. A BBC feature film, The Hummingbird Tree, was shot in Trinidad with a local crew, and went on to win several awards. This helped Jonathan to gain the first Fulbright/T.E.B.Clarke Fellowship to study at the film school of the University of Southern California. The script that he wrote there concerned the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It was never filmed, but became his first published novel, Blue Poppies. Other drama productions included Down the Tubes, a play for community theatre in Edinburgh, and River of Dreams, a musical for children with composer Gordon Murch. He was also translator and scriptwriter for Diriamba!, a co-production between the Edinburgh Theatre Workshop and Teatro Nixtayolero of Nicaragua which won a ‘Fringe First’ on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Five other novels followed: Poor Mercy, Glenfarron, and The Physician of Sanlucar, The White Porcupine, and Good News from Riga.
Jonathan has also written wide-ranging non-fiction, including an edited war memoir of his father, The Luck of the Devil, a collection of essays and travel writing, Beyond the Roadblocks, and an illustrated memoir of the 'hippy trail' to India in 1974, Saama: Innocents in Asia. His account of a year spent with the Karen rebels in Burma, True Love & Bartholomew, is part ethnography, part autobiography, and part historical study, and is widely recognised as a major contribution to the understanding of ethnic conflicts in Asia.
Jonathan is currently an arts lecturer for the UK's Open University, and for ten years has been director of the St Andrews University summer school in creative writing.
During the 1990s Jonathan was writing drama. A BBC feature film, The Hummingbird Tree, was shot in Trinidad with a local crew, and went on to win several awards. This helped Jonathan to gain the first Fulbright/T.E.B.Clarke Fellowship to study at the film school of the University of Southern California. The script that he wrote there concerned the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It was never filmed, but became his first published novel, Blue Poppies. Other drama productions included Down the Tubes, a play for community theatre in Edinburgh, and River of Dreams, a musical for children with composer Gordon Murch. He was also translator and scriptwriter for Diriamba!, a co-production between the Edinburgh Theatre Workshop and Teatro Nixtayolero of Nicaragua which won a ‘Fringe First’ on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Five other novels followed: Poor Mercy, Glenfarron, and The Physician of Sanlucar, The White Porcupine, and Good News from Riga.
Jonathan has also written wide-ranging non-fiction, including an edited war memoir of his father, The Luck of the Devil, a collection of essays and travel writing, Beyond the Roadblocks, and an illustrated memoir of the 'hippy trail' to India in 1974, Saama: Innocents in Asia. His account of a year spent with the Karen rebels in Burma, True Love & Bartholomew, is part ethnography, part autobiography, and part historical study, and is widely recognised as a major contribution to the understanding of ethnic conflicts in Asia.
Jonathan is currently an arts lecturer for the UK's Open University, and for ten years has been director of the St Andrews University summer school in creative writing.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 9, 2017
I really love this author. I love his writing style. I love the way he takes me into exotic locales and weaves a good story. Who can resist a tale about a mysterious French doctor in the Patagonian wilderness in a self-imposed exile? And his use of language:
“… silhouettes in the morning light that came off the bay and off the silver sea beyond the spit, light that was reflected by salt crystals on the soil, making the dirt shine and the air shimmer.”
“The waxy young leaves of the calafate shrubs were spangled with lemon yellow flowers, and flocks of tiny swallows with glittering blue wings zipped after insects.”
“Overhead, stars blazed from north to south, and out to sea. The full moon was high, its light bold and thrilling.”
“The sun sprang from cloud to cloud like a child jumping rocks in a mountain torrent.”
“… silhouettes in the morning light that came off the bay and off the silver sea beyond the spit, light that was reflected by salt crystals on the soil, making the dirt shine and the air shimmer.”
“The waxy young leaves of the calafate shrubs were spangled with lemon yellow flowers, and flocks of tiny swallows with glittering blue wings zipped after insects.”
“Overhead, stars blazed from north to south, and out to sea. The full moon was high, its light bold and thrilling.”
“The sun sprang from cloud to cloud like a child jumping rocks in a mountain torrent.”
June 25, 2016
Loved the book. It is not a quick read but very interesting.
November 10, 2018
A beautifully written book
The writing is lovely. Compelling reading. Delves into the human spirit. Mans love, pathos and humanity.
A delicate story, rich with emotion recounting the agony and suffering of compassion and love and the power and strength they can impart.
The writing is lovely. Compelling reading. Delves into the human spirit. Mans love, pathos and humanity.
A delicate story, rich with emotion recounting the agony and suffering of compassion and love and the power and strength they can impart.
September 1, 2024
Now, this was a surprise - a very good one. I'd been searching for an historical novel set in Patagonia and there were few options. I'm cautious about taking on books that are self-published and/or have very few reader reviews. On this occasion, because of the dearth of options, I took a punt on The Physician of Sanlucar. So glad I did! This is historical fiction at its best. Truly terrific writing, which immersed me in the setting (I could see, touch and feel the world of colonial Patagonia) and introduced me to the indigenous people of that place and time, and characters that seemed totally real. A tiny hint of mystery and romance - just sufficient to appeal to a broad range of readers but not so much as to destroy the integrity of the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, so much that I immediately ordered two other books by this author - also set in off-the-beaten-path locations- Poor Mercy and Blue Poppies. Can't wait to get into them!
May 30, 2013
This is the poignant story of a French doctor who has run away from Europe and hidden in the outback of Patagonia to minister to the local tribes,in an attempt to overcome his past misdeeds. Unfortunately, even in this godforsaken place, he can't cut himself off completely from other Europeans and the brutal land grab and massacre of the Indians taking place around him is difficult to avoid. Doctor Macanan feels impotent to help them and his despair adds an existential resonance to a finely written book.
Like Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' the theme of the novel is savagery versus civilisation, but in this case the native Indians live a far simpler and more humane existence than many of the rapacious settlers.
Falling in love with another man's wife revitalises Doctor Macanan and in the thrilling denouement of the novel, when the First World War intrudes, all the elements of the plot are brought together in a surprising and ultimately satisfying way.
Like Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' the theme of the novel is savagery versus civilisation, but in this case the native Indians live a far simpler and more humane existence than many of the rapacious settlers.
Falling in love with another man's wife revitalises Doctor Macanan and in the thrilling denouement of the novel, when the First World War intrudes, all the elements of the plot are brought together in a surprising and ultimately satisfying way.
September 18, 2013
Jonathan Falla's work was new to me. Looking around since I see that this was five years in the writing. It shows. It's a fabulous book, beautifully constructed. Set in Patagonia around 1915, we follow a Frenchman, Matthieu Macanan, who goes ever more remote with his doctoring skills till there's mostly just the native Indians to serve. Early flying machines, backstories and romance are thrown into the mix ... in plot terms, nothing is wasted but it doesn't seem 'set-up' at all as you read. A little Graham Greene-like perhaps, THE POWER AND THE GLORY, or it has such scope as Peter Carey's OSCAR AND LUCINDA. Heartily recommended.
January 28, 2014
This book transports you to another time and another world in the story of Matthieu Macanan who flees France in the early 20th century to work as a doctor in a remote region of South America. As he seeks to avoid Europeans and a past shame, his reclusive life is invaded by an incongruous German couple arriving in a fragile, dove-like plane. An extra-ordinary and absorbing tale, Falla's book is peopled by unforgettable characters struggling against each other and a harsh landscape. The writing is beautiful, spare and full of the unexpected. You will enjoy it.
October 28, 2015
Enjoyed this book. Good, clear, eloquent writing. Set in the early 1900's a frenchman practices medicine in remote Patagonia to avoid society & his past. An Austrian couple come into his world and the solitary life he has worked so hard to preserve is over and he has to face the skeletons in the closet.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews