The Physician of Sanlucar

"It might have become a cloud-swept sexathon with syringes and flashing machetes to heighten the action. But The Physician of Sanlucar, although charged with compelling drama and moral edge, eschews both melodrama and bathos. We begin on the cusp of the First World War. Matthieu Macanan, a young French physician in the backstreets of Punta Arenas, tending the woes of native Indians, raddled farmers, and the sex-starved sailors. He is an altruist, aloof, obsessively private. Macanan flees to Sanlucar to bury himself, to begin again, with his handful of volumes of poetry, his shack, and an outhouse to work in. Falla weaves a teasing chimera: Who is this doctor? What is his past? Why is he here? Is he indeed a doctor at all? The cloistered, secretive doctor is soon prised open by the sylph-like Silke Kahn who, with her husband, plans to link Patagonia's communities. Their plane, the fragile Dove, is a daring, almost incongruous symbol of their hopes. Matthieu's principles are overwhelmed. He treats Silke's migraines by giving her heroin. Hooked on the object of his love, he can't see that she in turn is becoming addicted to the drug. Their affair is touchingly brought to life. Falla allows the lovers sufficient space in which to grow before the world wakes up to a cargo ship carrying gold which has run aground off Sanlucar. Its cargo attracts Patagonia's pioneer thugs. Matthieu realises that Silke must hear the truth about his past; his revelations are poignant, tragic, all too believable, and make his inevitable fate and that of Silke the more touching. Falla's construction and execution of the novel are beautifully judged... it's carried out with poetic subtlety, hard to spot because the writing itself is so joyously accomplished, light, almost airborne. And witty too, a wry, anachronistic treat for fans of the movie, Casablanca." Tom Adair, The Scotsman