Book Review: The Book of Madness and Cures

"Melancholia seeps into one's life like the metallic sand of an hourglass... My friend Messalina grew so disconsolate that no one could find a cure, not even my father... It is said that the black bile of melancholia devours even stone with its terrible acid."

Such descriptions made up the understanding of medicine in Renaissance Italy, and they punctuate Regina O'Melveny's debut novel The Book of Madness and Cures. Gabriella Mondini, the only female doctor in Venice, leaves home to find her father after receiving a puzzling letter from him. Following the trail of the letters he sent over the years, Gabriella visits cities all over Europe and the Mediterranean, as far north as Scotland and as far south as Morocco. Meanwhile she tries to complete the book she began working on with him, a compendium of medical conditions and their cures, from the souls of the dead that infect the living to the blue earworms that absorb words spoken to women. The novel is not only a fascinating tour through the Renaissance world but a glimpse into the near-magical attitude medical practitioners had about illness and its treatment, all related in gorgeous writing.

Historical fiction is an ever-popular genre. Other recent historical fiction titles include The Divining, a similar story featuring a woman traveling throughout the ancient Roman Empire; Four Sisters, All Queens, about four 13th-century monarchs; and The Rebel Wife, set in the years after the American Civil War. - Michelle (Sunset)