The Leper's Companions
 Julia Blackburn
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1999 Pantheon Books
  ISBN: 0679439846


This book is available in used condition from $3.00

While it ostensibly deals with a grieving woman, this book covers a lot of territory about how plagues came to isolated villages & creatures came out from the sea; about hurting & healing, superstition & faith, dreams & visions, & pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

This a rare book to encounter, deftly sketching what it might have been like to live 800 years ago on the coast of a sparsely-settled land, where a new religion interfaces with the old, where life is so fragile before the onslaught of the weather, & relationships are infused with hallucinations.

The Leper's Companions is a parable, exquisitely written in lean & learned detail. It carries the Reader off into another time & another place where our ancestors tried to make sense of what they saw, believed & felt.

Reminded me of Daphne du Maurier's The House on The Strand -- which is a super recommendation! Both books start in the present & travel back into a very different & fascinating place in time. I really liked Julia Blackburn's little book.

The Leper's Companions is a truly remarkable read, rang all my bells & gave me much to think about! I sincerely hope it comes into reprint soon so it can thrill others, as it did me. Until then, go hunt up a used copy, I'm not selling mine!

More by Julia Blackburn : The Emperor's Last Island; Daisy Bates in the Desert; The Book of Color
(06/09/02)

Rebecca