Himalayan Dhaba FROM THE PUBLISHER
In a remote Himalayan village, a widowed American doctor searches for the ghost of her husband, an injured traveler is kidnapped, and the waiter in the local dhaba finds love when he least expects it...
Following her late husband's ghost to a town high in the Indian Himalayas, Doctor Mary stumbles into an abandoned mission hospital. Caught between her recent grief and the hopeless care of a dying baby girl, she begins a year long odyssey of descent and redemption that connects her with a cast of unexpected characters.
FROM THE CRITICS
Salem Evening News
An amazing story...Beautifully written and elegantly shaped.
Publishers Weekly
One of five recipients of the 2002 Pacific Northwest Book Award, Danner's previously self-published debut novel is a captivating tale about an American doctor who brings her medical expertise to a snowy village in northern India and quickly finds herself in over her head. After her husband, Richard, dies, Mary Davis relocates to the small, rudimentary Himalayan hospital where he once worked, hoping to carry on his medical labor of love. The remote, bare-bones facility is run by Dr. Vargeela, a hero of Richard's, who disappears shortly after Mary's arrival, leaving her in charge of a small staff of nurses, a motley collection of patients some severely ill and limited medical provisions, as well as the drugged-out, obnoxious Western hippies who regularly drift into the hospital. Davis's diligence, along with plenty of rushed (and impressively detailed) operations, pays off, and she manages to keep the facility afloat. But she's powerless to stop the kidnapping of Phillip Davenport, the teenage son of a British diplomat, who becomes a patient of Mary's when he breaks his neck. Preparing to transfer Phillip to a different hospital, Mary sends him off in a jeep whose driver, well aware of the pampered boy's bankability, ends up holding him for ransom. A taut, nail-biting climax unfurls across the frozen canyons of the Himalayas. Danner, a former medical practitioner in Himalayan India, parlays his technical knowledge and storytelling skill into a vibrant, emotionally resonant tale. Agent, Lauren Schwartz. (June 3) Forecast: Danner's timely grappling with the moral quandaries of Americans abroad, plus his experience in the Himalayas and the book's unusual publication history will make this author an appealing interview candidate. Expect solid sales for a first novel. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
KLIATT
Richard Davis, who had worked for two months at Dr. Vikram's hospital, persuades his wife Mary that they should both travel to India to practice medicine. Mary, however, arrives alone at the remote Himalayan village 7000 feet above the plains of Northern India, because Richard had been killed in a hit-and-run accident a little over a year before, and she is still at loose ends. Dr. Vikram is not there to welcome her to the hospital. In fact, he has left her to run the hospital indefinitely because of his father's illness. Mary alternates between feeling totally responsible for the life and death of the village people, and wanting to flee to focus on her own pain. Mary's clients include Phillip, the son of a British diplomat who had rather unsuccessfully taken up the hippie life and ended up with a broken back; Amod, the kind and lonely waiter from the dhaba (caf�), who supplies her with food when she is too tired to eat but who has no joy in his life because of his fears and insecurities; and Antone, a druggie who tries to kidnap Phillip for ransom, not knowing about his injury. This novel is as much about Mary's recovery from grief as it is about the adventures she has at this remote hospital. Danner, winner of the 2002 Book of the Year Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, incorporates into the story many of his own experiences as a doctor in Himalayan India in the early 1990s. His sentences seem almost metrical, exhibiting an underlying repetitive beat or pulse. An excellent book for adults and ambitious teens about the struggle to provide adequate medical care in remote areas of the world and about some of the unique ways in which doctor and patients heal eachother. KLIATT Codes: SA;Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Penguin Putnam, Plume, 311p., Allison
Kirkus Reviews
An engaging debut novel (originally self-published in 1995) describes the complicated lives of various expatriates living in the hinterlands of northern India. Mary Davis is a long way from home. A physician from Baltimore, recently widowed, Mary has traveled to a remote Indian village in the shadow of the Himalayas to work in a small mission hospital that her late husband Richard once served. Why? Partly to forget, partly to remember: Richard had always spoken so lovingly of the place and its people (especially of hospital director Dr. Vargeela) that Mary thought the trip would not only serve to distract her from her grief but to bring her in some way closer to her husband's memory. The reality, of course, was something of a shock. Dr. Vargeela was an able physician indeed-but he disappeared on a business trip shortly after Mary's arrival and left her in charge of the entire operation. She quickly learned to function without the luxuries of American hospitals (MRIs, blood labs, etc.) and soon found herself practicing without many of the essentials (antibiotics and disinfectants). But most annoying were the hippies who drifted through the region: perpetually drunk and stoned, they took up endless hours in the clinic with their overdoses and accidental injuries. One of them, Phillip Davenport, becomes a major nightmare: The son of a British diplomat, Phillip breaks his neck and has to be evacuated to a better-equipped hospital elsewhere. This task is entrusted to Meena, a young but dedicated nurse, and a shady British driver named Antone. Swaddled in the back of an ancient Jeep, Phillip is painstakingly driven along the bad roads of the region for several days-until Antone concocts ascheme to kidnap Phillip and demand a ransom for his safe delivery. Secreted in an out-of-the-way inn with the loyal Meena, Phillip awaits his rescue. Will it come in time? A fresh spirit animates this tale, one carefully constructed, simply narrated, and briskly organized.
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