The Crimson Portrait by Jody Shields

Originally published in Time Out New York, December 14, 2006

Those who tune in weekly to Grey’s Anatomy might be enticed by Jody Shields’s new period piece, The Crimson Portrait.Set in a British estate-turned-military-hospital during World War I, the novel chronicles the collaboration between artists and surgeons in the treatment of soldiers disfigured in combat. There’s a lot of dramatic potential here: A widow falls in love with a soldier whose face is destroyed and has the opportunity to remake him in the image of her dead husband. But the story tends to dissolve into melodrama under the weight of Shields’s oppressively descriptive prose.

The novel revolves around four central characters: Catherine, the devastated widow; Dr. McCleary, the head surgeon; Anna, the American painter brought in to document the soldiers’ damaged faces; and Dr. Kazanjian, the brilliant dental surgeon recruited to assist Dr. McCleary. The novel is most successful when describing the shoestring methods employed to save lives, and Shields, who also penned 2001’s The Fig Eater, seamlessly incorporates medical terminology. Also compelling is her examination of the notion that identity is rooted in appearance. McCleary’s patients are sequestered and denied access to mirrors, so they can slowly adapt to their altered faces before reentering society.

Unfortunately, Shields’s characters are too inscrutable to invoke empathy. It is unclear whether Catherine loves Julian, the soldier who resembles her husband, or merely manipulates him to assuage her grief. Anna’s demeanor is so cold that Kazanjian’s patient courtship of her is baffling. The convergence of art and science, summed up by Anna, who comments that “a surgeon must have the soul of an artist,” hints at fascinating fictional territory. Limited character insights and flowery language, however, reduce The Crimson Portrait from powerful to just passably intriguing.