The Vines by Shelly Nolden
The Vines (Freiling Publishing), Shelly Nolden’s first book — with a promise of more — is a wonderful mix of science fiction, history, fantasy and some wishful thinking; a worthy read on so many levels.
When we meet Cora on page one, she’s showering, with the glow of dawn illuminating a mass of scars on her back and neck. Then we meet Finn Gettler, an intrepid urban explorer, as he is crouched in the half-dark, watching. The Vines is their story, but it’s also a tale of a deserted island, an abandoned hospital and a medical obsession grown out of control.
The island is North Brother Island, located in New York City’s East River, once a hospital compound that served as an isolation post for patients with highly infectious diseases like tuberculosis, measles, scarlet fever and typhus. Improvements in modern medicine made the isolation unnecessary so it was abandoned in 1963 and left to grow wild. Public access is prohibited, and the nearly twenty acres have become so overgrown as to be dangerous to intruders. There are crumbling buildings, broken pavements, and rusted pipes and lampposts, creating a haunting locale for an equally haunting story.
MIRACLE OR CURSE?
In 1902, 17-year-old Cora and her little sister Maeve came to the island compound to quarantine and recover from measles. Maeve succumbed to typhus while there, but despite testing positive for the virus, Cora never fell ill … and never grew old.
Her body had developed a miraculous immune system, and as long as she stayed on the island, she lived as a healthy but incomprehensible host to viruses lethal to everyone else. Finn’s paternal grandfather was her doctor, and Dr. Gettler, intensely intrigued, saw promise in her condition. Perhaps, by studying her, he could discover ways to help the world.
Cora became an unwilling lab rat, and when Dr. Gettler died, Finn’s father and brother carried on the gruesome research.
Intent on finding a universal cure for diseases that have no vaccine, however, the men lose their sense of humanity. Their obsession with Cora’s immune system drives them to draw thousands of blood samples and force her to undergo hundreds of surgeries, leaving her tortured and angry. “Mutilated,” thinks Finn when he sees her scars, “but so graceful.” And when he notices the contours of her biceps, “ … more warrior than victim.”
A POIGNANT PERSONAL BACKSTORY
Nolden has done her research, weaving in historical events like the PS General Slocum cruise tragedy and the sad story of Typhoid Mary, but also her own story of illness and resilience. In 2011, she was diagnosed with acute leukemia after losing her second baby at 20 weeks. Confined to the ICU, she was forbidden to see her remaining child for fear the toddler would expose her to germs that could kill her. Nolden understands the terror, the loneliness and the ache for human touch that Cora experiences in The Vines.
Nolden gives us engaging ancillary characters with their own backstories and relationships. There’s Finn’s girlfriend Lily, the entire Gettler family, the kind orderly at the hospital, and the handsome Linneaus Jones. Some characters keep secrets, some behave abominably, and some courageously persevere. Reading The Vines may send Nolden’s readers to their computers to search for North Brother Island images in order to better visualize Cora in her ghostly island prison; it will certainly make every reader eager for the sequel.
