by Gianni Washington
January 25, 2022
Gianni Washington is an Associate Fiction Editor with West Trade Review. She has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from The University of Surrey, and her work has been published in The Fat City Review online, LitroNY.com, and in the horror anthology Brief Grislys. She is also featured on episodes 8 (Dec. 2020) and 10 (Feb. 2021) of The Great American Folk Show reading from her short story, “Homunculus.”
Anatomy a Love Story by Dana Schwartz; Wednesday Books; 352 pages; $18.99
Dana Schwartz, while best known for her hilarious and incisive cultural commentary, has written an earnest tale for young enthusiasts of historical romance that blends the gothic beauty of 19th century Scotland, a female protagonist with admirable aspirations to change the world, an intriguing love interest from the "wrong side of the tracks,” and a sinister murder mystery that acts as connective tissue for it all.
Hazel Sinnett is a young woman whose maternal grandfather was a viscount and whose father is a lord and captain of the Royal Navy. Hazel’s mother neglects her in favor of smothering her youngest son and heir with attention in hopes of averting another family tragedy. Hazel, who cannot inherit, is all but promised to her mother’s nephew, Bernard Almont, who is destined to carry the title of viscount when his own father dies. Hazel’s life path was determined long before she took her first breath. She is to live out the rest of her days planning and attending social events, engaging perhaps in a respectable hobby or two, but never enjoying a career beyond that of an aristocratic wife and mother. It is certainly not in the cards that she become a physician, or worse, a surgeon (*gasp*), an occupation thought to be far too gruesome for the delicate sensibilities of the fair sex. However, that is exactly Hazel’s desire. Having lost her older brother to the Roman Fever—a horrific disease characterized by blood-filled boils that cover its victim’s back only to burst, leaving stains resembling the fatal stab wounds of Julius Caesar—Hazel is determined to find a cure.
While attempting to sneak into a surgical demonstration given by the preeminent Dr. William Beecham III, author of the most referenced medical text of the time, Hazel meets a young man she once spotted outside the Almont estate: Jack Currer. Jack is a resurrection man—a body snatcher who sells his dead wares to Edinburgh’s doctors and medical students. Upon striking a wager with Dr. Beecham himself that hinges upon her passing the Physician’s Examination—without the aid of an official place on the medical course—Hazel arranges to buy bodies from Jack which she can examine in the privacy of the dungeon on her family property. However, their arrangement is cut short when Jack refuses to go on anymore digs alone because the body snatchers have begun getting snatched themselves, only to turn up maimed, dead, or not at all. Hazel convinces Jack to make her his new partner in resurrection, an experience which brings the two of them steadily closer, until it is one another they begin to dream of in place of the futures they once felt hopelessly bound to.
Strides are being made every day in the fields of science and technology, among others, in the inclusion and recognition of female professionals, but there is still much more to do. Young women who read Anatomy will have no trouble rooting for Hazel’s success, especially if they too hope to achieve in fields dominated by men. Hazel is passionate and curious, despite the life already mapped out for her. The adults around her merely think her naïve, utterly disregarding the difference between naïveté and holding firmly to your own identity. Hazel knows who she is and, excluding a few understandable slips into self-doubt, stays true to that in a way that reads as neither obnoxious nor foolish. However, watching Hazel develop into someone both passionate and increasingly thoughtful would have been all the more satisfying.
Interestingly, Hazel does not achieve success in the way a reader might hope. Her wager is ultimately abandoned to follow the threads of the mystery of those gone missing from the city, and to save Jack’s life. While this turn is not wholly unexpected (as this is a love story), it is a bit disappointing, after an entire book’s worth of effort, that Hazel does not manage to become officially recognized as a proper student of medicine as she intended. More disappointing than that, though, is what is left to occur off the page. What would likely have been among the most tense and compelling scenes in the book—a confrontation with Bernard about his horrific betrayal in which Hazel is forced to fully reckon with her feelings regarding the life she has been conscripted to; the anxious process of Jack’s deliberation regarding his eventual fate in the story; Hazel returning to the Anatomist’s Society, insisting to those in charge that she be allowed to pursue her studies—aren’t there.
This isn’t to say that their inclusion would necessitate a particular result, either. Hazel might well have returned to the Anatomist’s Society with a fire lit under her only to be turned away yet again which, in a story set in the 19th century, is a wholly realistic outcome. It is witnessing the bends and dips in a character’s journey that matters most. Allowing the reader to experience more of Hazel’s growth as it happens, seeing the lightbulb flicker on in the situations mentioned above, could have been very insightful, not only for the purpose of getting to know Hazel better, but also to allow young readers to reconsider how they process their own emotions, as well as what the world says they should want versus what happiness might actually look like for them.
The longtime consumption of stories in all forms has conditioned us to expect certain outcomes. Lizzy will marry Mr. Darcy and her family’s financial worries will end; Ross will end up with Rachel, the woman he’s loved since he was fifteen; Thanos will die and the snap will be reversed. These endings have been set up for us, not only within each of these respective universes, but by every story ever told. The general wisdom is that each story is merely a variation of one of a handful of plots. Perhaps Schwartz was writing against the common expectation that the protagonist will get everything they’ve always wanted after proving, over the course of an arduous journey, that they deserve it. While understandable, the impact of that decision would be far greater if all along, we had watched Hazel wrestle with her own ego, and gradually come to the realization that being recognized publicly as a physician ultimately means nothing if she can’t save the life that means the most to her.
As it is, events unfold rather quickly, primarily in the last third of the novel as this is where the climax takes place. While this sets a thrilling pace that remains assured right through to the conclusion, the effect becomes similar to that of being on a train, trying to drink in every ounce of gorgeous scenery before it zooms past. It would have been gratifying to witness Hazel begin to linger in those transitional spaces between her most life-changing decisions, which more often than not she seems to arrive at after next to no deliberation. The wish here is not that she shed the determination that defines her, but to utilize it after thoughtful consideration of how her choices will affect others. Pausing before the plunge is not cowardice. On the contrary, it is a sure and welcome sign of maturity, as both fictional character and human being. After all, had Romeo waited a few seconds more, perhaps he would have had his Juliet.
Of course, not every reader will see the above as essential, and most will surely enjoy this story without it. Either way, Hazel’s tale has the potential to embolden all who meet her to see their own paths through with courage and authenticity, whatever that may look like in the end.
©2022 West Trade Review
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When Love Conquers Even Dreams in Anatomy: a Love Story
FICTION REVIEW
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