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Summary
Summary
An aristocratic Russian doctor races to contain a deadly plague in an outpost city in Manchuria - before it spreads to the rest of the world.
1910: people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. Strangely, some of the dead bodies vanish before they can be identified.
During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city's medical commissioner, is determined to stop this mysterious plague. Battling local customs, an occupying army, and a brutal epidemic with no name, the Baron is torn between duty and compassion, between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition. His allies include a French doctor, a black marketeer, and a charismatic Chinese dwarf. His greatest refuge is the intimacy he shares with his young Chinese wife - but she has secrets of her own.
Based on a true story that has been lost to history, set during the last days of imperial Russia, The Winter Station is a richly textured and brilliant novel about mortality, fear and love.
Author Notes
Jody Shields is the author of two novels, the bestselling novel The Fig Eater and The Crimson Portrait . Formerly Design Editor of the New York Times magazine and a Contributing Editor of American Vogue, Shields is also a screenwriter and a collected artist. She is a resident of New York City.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The outbreak of plague in Manchuria during the winter of 1910-1911 tests a Russian doctor's physical, emotional, and moral stamina in Shields's accomplished third novel (after The Fig Eater and The Crimson Portrait). When Chief Medical Examiner Baron Rozher Alexandrovich von Budberg learns that two bodies were whisked away from outside the Kharbin train station, he wonders why he wasn't notified. The czar's appointed administrator, Gen. Dmitry Khorvat, assures him the corpses were not Russian and so are of no importance, then asks him to investigate the death of a Russian businessman. The businessman's daughter describes her father coughing up blood before he died. Evidence mounts of a deadly epidemic made worse by a political cover-up. Matters worsen: a public-relations-minded Chinese epidemiologist breaks with tradition to conduct secret autopsies but refuses to shut down the railway during Chinese New Year; plague-wagons patrol the streets removing people who look sick; a doctor ignoring the baron's pleas to use masks, gloves, and disinfectant succumbs to contagion, as do countless others. Shields's Kharbin is plagued not only by disease but also by rumor, superstition, pride, and ignorance. This fictional portrait of a man caught in a real-life medical crisis proves affecting and timely in its exploration of conflicts between cultures and classes, ambition and mortality, science and politics. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
In 1910 Manchuria, a doctor is baffled by a deadly epidemic.Shields (The Crimson Portrait, 2006, etc.) may be the first novelist to tackle the mysterious plague that overtook Manchuria early in the last century. In Kharbin, a railroad hub under the joint control of Czarist Russia and the Chinese empire, Russian physician Baron von Budberg, the city's chief medical examiner,, is frustrated when two corpses found near the railway station are spirited away before he can ascertain the cause of death. Soon, such deaths and disappearances are mounting exponentially, both in the hovels of the Chinese laborers and the mansions of the privileged Russian sector. As frigid winter descends, it becomes clear to the Baron and his hospital colleagues that a highly infectious plague has gripped Kharbin. The malady presents initially with mild symptoms, racing pulse and elevated temperature, followed within hours by wracking cough, hemorrhage, and death. The chief difficulty here is that Shields has trouble meshing the disease-thriller aspect of this novel with her almost worshipful character study of the Baron, a humanist equally at home with his Chinese wife, Li Ju, calligraphy lessons, and tea ceremonies as he is with vodka and caviar. Many colorfulor so they are clearly intendedcharacters cross the Baron's path, including his venal boss, Gen. Khorvat, and his confidants Andreev, a fixer and smuggler, and the dwarf Chang, a tea master. Although his loyalty to less raffish friends as well as his meditative calligraphy practice may lend gravitas to the Baron's persona, he remains a cipher. The depiction of the epidemic hews closely to the known facts: the discarded, frozen bodies, the brutal quarantine methods, and the initially scattershot official response. Unfortunately, though, the narrative is nearly devoid of forward momentum. Rather than do battle, the Baron seems content to ruefully observe the plague's inevitable advance. Potential conflicts, like the Baron's incipient rivalry with a Dr. Wu, whom he views as a young upstart, are never developed.A Manchurian Hot Zone this is not. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Set in the railway outpost of Kharbin, Manchuria, several stories play out against the frigid landscape: the uneasy power play between China, Russia, and Japan in 1910; changing mores necessitated by social proximity; and a devastating epidemic faced by a radically divided medical team. These aspects alone form an interesting study. Added to them are elaborately described cultural traditions involving the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and musings on vodka, which sometimes overshadow the central mystery of a killer disease and disappearing bodies. As in her previous novels (including The Crimson Portrait, 2006), Shields ably evokes the delicate psychological gray area between imagined horrors and a stark, scary reality, gradually introducing readers to a little-known slice of history and then constructing an increasingly nightmarish scenario around it. Unfortunately, the race for solutions to the mystery slows somewhat, as if the narrative flow is trapped in both the snowy setting and the excessive posturing of the characters. Readers focused on the main story line may be frustrated, but others will be captivated by the atmosphere and the various, essay-like ruminations, which evoke Peter Høeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow (1993).--Baker, Jen Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Based on the true story of a 1910 epidemic in the Russian-ruled city of Harbin, Manchuria, this ultrarealistic novel focuses on a Russian aristocrat and his young Chinese wife. The case of a few mysterious fatalities, accompanied by the disappearance of some of the bodies before they can be identified, explodes into a raging contagion. The Baron is the ranking Russian medical officer and wants the official response to be respectful of cultural differences with the local Chinese population. Instead, brutal measures are taken to curb the plague. Vividly, we track the Baron through months of exposure as the bacillus and its vectors of infection elude the investigators. There is no vaccine, no treatment, and no escape as no one is allowed to leave the city. Tens of thousands perish. While the drama lies in the plague and its grisly effects, the true gift of this remarkable novel is its lyrical portrayal of the Baron and his few allies. They retain their moral balance despite fear, hate, and jingoism all around. VERDICT Shields (The Fig Eater) joins the high echelon of Boris Akunin and Sam Eastland in re-creating a time when science and reason vie with superstition and prejudice to protect the helpless subjects of the tsar. [See Prepub Alert, 7/9/17.]-Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
