A Stream to Follow
Set on the United States home front and in the World War II France and London of its protagonist’s memory, this is a welcome addition to 1940s-set historical novels. The tale follows young doctor Bruce Duncan as he returns to his small Pennsylvania home town to set up a general practice. Bruce is smarting from both PTSD episodes and the lost love of a wartime romance with a British heiress (she chooses someone of her own class to help her keep the old manse running). The returning hero is embroiled in family problems, too—although his widowed mother has found a new life with a judge, and his younger fighter-pilot brother’s alcoholism and manic episodes threaten his own romance and future as owner of the family’s hardware store.
After a heroic car crash rescue, the town’s new doctor uncovers dangers in a local industry’s silicosis epidemic. Who wouldn’t want to go following a stream to fish, either via memories of a bucolic English countryside or outside his troubled hometown? Oh, then the heiress might be changing her mind again, and she shows up. The man’s got his hands full.
This well-crafted novel both haunts and uplifts. Its big heart, good characterizations and lyric scene setting are its winning strengths.
