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Your Presence Is Requested At Suvanto (2010)

by Maile Chapman(Favorite Author)

3.31 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1555975534 (ISBN13: 9781555975531)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Graywolf Press

review 1: I have a history with this book. The title caught my eye when I was trialling through long lists of data at work. It sounded interesting so I bought it, started reading it then accidentally left it in a pub toilet. I wonder if anyone found it and read it... By this time I knew I would like it but I couldn't remember the title. I thought about it a few times over the next few weeks but it turns out you can find anything on the Internet. I think I just searched 'Sunny', 'Finland', 'Hospital'. After buying the book for the second time I lost it and found it many times in our flat but now I have finally read the whole thing. I love this kind of book, a bit dark, unsettling and emotional and it did live up to my expectations. I kind of agree with the person who said they wanted... more more from the book but for me this manifested in that sense where you feel like you know the characters and you kind of miss them. So in that sense I did want more!Maile, when will you write another book?
review 2: Odd book! The prose is quite unusual and successful for the most part but sometimes gets a little tedious. I finished it feeling slightly confused - there seems to be an incremental build up to the final events, then they happen and are more or less glossed over, then returned to but you're not sure what's true and what isn't. The narrator appears to be a patient at the hospital or at least it's the voice of someone who was maybe there once but it gives an off-kilter edge to the whole thing which is in keeping with the idea of the book as a whole but also meant that I couldn't fully get into it. The premise is that it's set in a convalescent hospital in Finland in the 20s and we spend most of the book with the "up patients" who are mainly wealthy wives of American businessmen. Looking after them is Sunny, an American nurse who is so repressed it's a wonder she doesn't fracture apart when she ties her cap on every day. It is atmospheric and with some good character studies (Pearl and Julia especially) but because the climax of the book is so sudden and close to the end, some actions just jar. Julia Dey is the new patient who arrives at Suvanto and stirs things up a bit and most of the "action" revolves around her but it all starts too late and finishes too abruptly to make this a really satisfying read. less

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