Four years ago, a friend of mine wrote a fascinating historical fiction novel about a part of U.S. history that was unknown to me. During World War II, Italian prisoners of war were billeted in New Orleans and other parts of the United States, including Boston. They worked in the shipyards, were invited to spaghetti dinners by the local Italian community and, inevitably, romances ensued. The main character, Rose, wrestles with the complications of such a relationship.
In Elisa M. Speranza’s new stand-alone book, “Triage,” the focus is on Rose’s sister, Laura, who worked as a combat nurse on the front lines in North Africa and Italy and returns home scared and scarred. Meticulously researched and compellingly written, the book toggles between Laura’s memories from the battlefield hospitals and her struggles to lead a normal life back in New Orleans. Like Kristin Hannah’s “The Women,” this book shines a spotlight on the everyday heroics of these Army nurses and on the degree to which their work – and their trauma – was underappreciated.
Laura disembarks her landing craft on the Algerian coast – wading through water with guns raging frighteningly close – to a hospital just a truck ride from the front. At the triage station, she sorts the incoming wounded for the surgeons or, worse, for the area where mortally wounded men are sent to die. In the surgical tent, she assists with amputations and shrapnel wounds. That’s between red alerts, when she trembles in water-filled trenches until the shelling stops.
When she comes home to her job as an ER nurse, she tries to put her fear behind her. Unfortunately, on page one, Laura finds out her best friend from the war has died; she’s devastated. She’s denied access to the camaraderie of the VFW and is told by family and friends alike to “just get past it.” Even though her husband was an Army doctor, he doesn’t want to talk about it. But Laura is plagued not only by a kind of shell shock, but by regrets and questions – could she have helped her friend and prevented her death? Why did others emerge seemingly unscathed, while she struggles with physical and mental symptoms?
Compellingly, she is drawn to another vet – a man who lost one arm and seems to truly share her pain and her need for honest connection. Together they find ways to forget their anguish through drink and other ill-advised coping mechanisms, which leads to her being suspended from work and putting her marriage in danger. We feel Laura’s feelings intensely, so what could seem like a series of bad decisions instead is made understandable and sympathetic by the author’s compassion for her subject.
If I had one complaint, it would be that Laura’s ultimate decision to stop self-medicating seems a little too easy. I found myself wondering if it was realistic for her to cut back on her drinking seemingly through sheer will. She manages to get by without the worst of the consequences that I could imagine. But by then I was rooting for Laura all the way and relieved to see her reckoning was with herself, taking steps to heal that she had been avoiding such as finally dealing with her friend’s death and admitting what she’s been going through to her hospital supervisor.
With its attention to detail and vivid descriptions – especially of the field hospital experience – this book takes you unflinchingly to the places Laura has lived. Her journey back toward wholeness feels true and intimate. If you’re a fan of historical fiction or of strong yet vulnerable women protagonists, this may be the book for you.
A version of this story appeared originally on the Porter Square Review of Books. Buy “Triage” from Porter Square Books.
