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The Communist’s Daughter

by Dennis Bock

Telling a fictional story from the point of view of a well-known Canadian figure is a risky venture, especially when much of the story takes place on the battlefields of Europe and China. When many readers are already acquainted with the protagonist, which facts can be stretched and bent to keep a sense of the unknown? By anchoring his new novel in a romantic affair Dr. Norman Bethune had with a member of his staff in Spain, Dennis Bock has brought the man vividly to life.

Told in the form of a letter Bethune is writing to a daughter he has never met, the story moves freely around in time as he recounts his life from early childhood to his final days with the Eighth Route Army in China. While Bock doesn’t shy away from the horrors of war – a particularly graphic scene in France has Bethune trying to rescue an injured childhood friend – much of the book focuses on relationships beyond the field hospitals that are his legacy.

Kajsa von Rothman, the mother of the titular daughter, is the focus of many of the novel’s most inspired scenes, including an underground walk though Madrid during an air raid, first by match-light, then in total darkness. Kajsa is a strong-willed woman, a well-matched companion for Bethune, who voices his regret over leaving her behind.

Writing about Bethune’s time in China, Bock often portrays the doctor as weary and frustrated. He brings the Chinese countryside strikingly to life as Bethune tells his daughter of the lack of trained medical personnel and supplies. The number of amputations performed and the long hours spent operating on the wounded are mentioned with a matter-of-fact detachment. Much is added to Bethune’s character as he interacts with Ho, a young Chinese boy he hires as an assistant.

It is a testament to Bock’s writing that one easily forgets that all of this is his own invention and not the actual words of Bethune. The Communist’s Daughter is a deep, well-written portrait of an important Canadian.

 

Reviewer: Colin Holt

Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

DETAILS

Price: $34.95

Page Count: 320 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 0-00-200528-X

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2006-9

Categories: Fiction: Novels