Reviewed by Claire Rivero

Award-winning poet Regina O’Melveny’s debut novel follows Gabriella Mondini, a bright, determined (and slightly self-obsessed) female doctor in the 16th century on her journey across Europe. Gabriella undertakes the adventure ostensibly to find her missing father, but in truth to find herself and escape the confining world of Venice. Gabriella learned to practice medicine from her father, and his disappearance weighs heavily on her, especially when Venice’s Guild of Physicians refuses to let her continue practicing medicine now that it has become clear that her father is unlikely to return to supervise her practice. Unloved by her mother, bereft of her trade and grieving a lost love, Gabriella and her two long-suffering servants (more like parents to Gabriella than her own mother and father) begin a difficult journey, following the path created by her father’s letters.

Gabriella is an interestingly crafted character. Passionate and intelligent, she is a bold woman in a century when bold women were a rarity, yet she is hard for the reader to identify with. Her obsessive need to trace the path of her father should be endearing — an illustration of true daughterly loyalty — yet much of the book is spent with Gabriella thinking about herself. She lapses into long periods of self-reflection, remembering childhood episodes, criticizing her mother and lamenting the unfair blows life has dealt her. The reader learns to dread these passages as they become somewhat repetitive and serve to make Gabriella more unlikable instead of an object of empathy.

At each new city, Gabriella meets with an acquaintance of her father, insisting that they address her as Dottore (Doctor), and she seems overly anxious to prove herself (or rather announce stridently) that she is their equal. Gabriella’s identity as a physician is incredibly important to her; she has not yet learned to value herself simply as a human being. Each time she is invited to a surgery exhibition or to study in a medical library, she talks about it extensively, proud that she is being included in the professional medical world, but the reader must read between the lines to appreciate that Gabriella is honored by these invitations. Even within the privacy of her inner thoughts, Gabriella rarely lets her guard down. She consistently exhibits feelings of entitlement and unjustified anger toward those who seem surprised to find a female doctor amongst them, even though as a 16th-century woman she must understand that she is a rarity. It is only through small moments of clarity that O’Melveny indicates that fragility and confusion lie behind a veneer of confidence and pride.

The book has a strong premise and parts of it are quite intriguing. Each new stop brings a new acquaintance and a new clue to finding Gabriella’s father. Though Gabriella angrily refuses to admit it, each country that brings her closer to her father also reveals further information about his mental decline. As Gabriella hears more stories of her father’s erratic behavior and descent into madness, her confidence begins to crack and she pairs the stories she hears with her own memories of her father. Until this point, she’d tried to rationalize these instances of odd behavior, but now realizes they support the fact of her father’s mental instability. As Gabriella is forced to confront reality, she begins to question her own role as a doctor, the only identity she has allowed herself to embrace. Since it was her father who taught her everything she knows, she is distressed to find out those skills and lessons may not have come from a respected medical genius, but instead a weak-minded, troubled man who is all too ordinary and pitied by his colleagues. Is this what Gabriella is destined to become?

An interesting contribution to the theme of sanity versus madness is Gabriella’s Book of Diseases, an encyclopedia of (mostly nonexistent or mythical) illnesses and disorders she began with her father, and compulsively updates along the journey. She seems to cling to the Book of Diseases as evidence that her father was a brilliant man, a man who, after all, taught her everything about being a doctor — he could not possibly be the madman these acquaintances describe. The irony lies in the fact that the entire book consists of old wives’ tales with unscientific cures that seem laughable today, yet which Gabriella feels grant her superior knowledge and understanding. As she does in so many other aspects of her life, Gabriella is basing her identity on ideas that are misguided. Gabriella works on the book obsessively, as if each new disease she records provides welcome relief — structure and answers in a world that seems chaotic and full of questions.

Along the journey, Gabriella gathers more than clues to her father’s whereabouts and information on diseases; she also gains experiences that help her reflect on her own identity and role in society. She had always rebelled against her mother’s wish that Gabriella follow a traditional path — that she marry and have children and stop forcing people to accept her as an equal in a man’s profession. At times throughout the journey, she dresses as a man and revels in the freedom and power the clothes give her, while at the same time constantly worrying she will be found out because the clothes also feel so wrong on her. She takes a huge risk by not cutting her hair when trying to pass as a man, unable to part with this symbol of her femininity. Along her journey she meets two men with whom she falls in love, yet each time she leaves them without warning, claiming she must continue on the path to find her father, obviously afraid of admitting she’s in love. The love she feels safest with is the love of her profession: a love of healing and a love of the power that medical knowledge gives her. As the plot unfolds, the reader wonders whether these two forms of love can ever coexist for Gabriella.

The Book of Madness and Cures is an easy read. Though parts of the narration are a bit slow, the structure of the continual journey means that every chapter brings a new adventure and a new piece of the puzzle — both to the mystery of Gabriella’s father’s disappearance and her own attempt to piece together her identity. Though the softening of Gabriella’s character could have helped to engage the reader more with her fate, the plot has enough twists and turns to keep interest high.

Claire Rivero is a graduate of Duke University with degrees in English and public policy and is currently a writer for the American Red Cross.