Product Description

As a doctor in Vietnam, Lily survived unimaginable terror and loss. Now, safely ensconced in a close-knit Maine town and a seemingly comfortable marriage, she no longer needs to be afraid, but she is: afraid of light, afraid of sudden sounds, afraid of seeing the wide-eyed child of war who haunts her. So Lily is unprepared for the act of betrayal that threatens to take away the one thing she cannot live without: her young son. Plunged into a bitter custody battle, befriended by a man with a heartbreaking secret of his own, Lily must fight–to escape her own memories, to survive an uncertain future, and to protect, above all else, the love between a mother and child.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1231598 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-27
• Released on: 2006-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Harris's first novel is a moving, if helter-skelter, story of a doctor's attempts to reintegrate into normal life after a shattering tour of duty during the Vietnam War. Picking up in 1978 in bucolic Maine, ten years after the Tet Offensive Lily Townsend endured as a doctor in Vietnam and which still erupts in memories to torment her. Her outwardly staid life with her husband, Ben, the owner of a dry-cleaners, and their four-year-old son, Jaime, is undermined by a litany of panicked flashbacks and the lingering guilt Lily feels over the crackup of her former lover, Ian, a reporter for Reuters, and the disappearance of their friend, Bao-Long. Back stateside, Lily resists treatment for her post-trauma stress, and Ben grows increasingly concerned about his wife, who prefers to leave off the house lights, breaks out in hives and dives under a car when she hears a sudden sharp noise-putting Jaime in harm's way. Ben's affair with a family friend shocks Lily ("You're not really here," he accuses her), and his aggressive attempts to secure custody of their son isolates her. Harris's story is enormously affecting, although the thick layering of Lily's suffering both overwhelms and diffuses the power of this slender, uneven work.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Still suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome some 10 years after her stint in Vietnam as a doctor, Lily finds herself overreacting to the sound of a car backfiring and the flickering fluorescent lights at the grocery store. Certain sensory details trigger a paralyzing fear, and she's suddenly back in a makeshift Vietnamese operating room, treating soldiers whose skin has been liquefied by napalm. In particular, she is haunted by the image of a dead child, who will suddenly materialize on her lawn or in her bedroom. Her increasingly impatient husband, worried about Lily's effect on their son, Jaime, abruptly leaves her for another woman and sues for full custody. Suddenly, the one role that has given Lily's life meaning may be taken from her, but Lily finds new reserves of courage in fighting back. In her intense debut novel, Harris describes the war dead and wounded with a delicacy of language that only makes the images more horrific. A distinctively styled novel that is especially notable for its unusual perspective on women in combat. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"A distinctively styled novel that is especially notable for its unusual perspective on women in combat.... [An] intense debut novel."—Booklist

“In her novel Lily’s Ghost, Cheryl Drake Harris beautifully demonstrates the ongoing power of Vietnam as a metaphor for complex aspects of the human condition.  This universal story of love and loss and the longing for connection is played out brilliantly against the Vietnam War and its aftermath—and, moreover, through a woman’s eyes, which gives the work an even wider resonance.  This is impressive work indeed by a fine new writer.”—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“One of the most intense renderings of a woman in Vietnam and in post-Vietnam America that I have ever read….Few novels present Vietnam so thoroughly and completely with its aftershocks. A story of great courage and tremendous power.”—Robert Stone, National Book Award-winning author of Dog Soldiers

“The story of a woman who, as a doctor, served in Vietnam and was permanently changed by her experience. Skillfully weaving into her novel a story of romantic love and a suspenseful account of a mother's effort to remain united with her child, Cheryl Drake Harris makes a compelling, memorable debut.”—Frederick Busch, author of Girls and The Night Inspector


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews

Lily's Ghost
This is a beautiful first novel, on an important subject. It brings to mind images of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 'Yellow Wallpaper', and Margaret Atwood's 'Surfacing'. It deals with the madness and aftermath of war, the unique subject of the experience of a female doctor serving in Vietnam, and the redeeming power of love. This is a book everyone should read.

Lily's Ghost
I was continually challenged by this work. While I could not directly relate to the recollected traumatic experiences of its protagonist (as a wartime physician in Viet Nam), I did find myself identifying with the dense, poetic imagery used to articulate her thoughts and reflections on what she was experiencing in real time as the book progressed...as Lily struggled so hard to integrate her excruciating past into her current life in a "normal" world. I often found myself pausing to re-read and ponder upon certain passages, eager to extract the gifts I knew they held for me.

While I have "finished" reading Lily's Ghost, I know I will carry these gifts with me as a continuing, abiding testament to the value of something all too rare: one author's skillful rendering of what grace we can find as we all face down our ghosts.

Heartbreaking reminders
This brought the Vietnam era into the present for brief moments but through the eyes of a woman -- a truly different, impressive approach. One could feel Lily's panic and her inside conflict. But life shows us that a child must be protected and Harris shows us the way that it can be made to be okay. Take care of the child, take care of the mother, honor the father and his place in this picture and remember the past.