Vital Signs by Tessa McWatt is a potent story about a marriage, which reveals its inner workings at the deterioration of one of its partners’ minds as a result of a fatal brain aneurysm.

Anna, a fully competent and ambitious intellect having versed herself in the study and a Masters in English Literature and the quest of utmost self-sufficiency, falls prey to a brain aneurysm that compels her to confabulate not only her sentences, but also recreate new, non-existent memories.

And it is Mike, her guilt-ridden husband, a graphic designer, who tries desperately to reach his wife through the different language of pictorial signs and symbols.

The narrative through the voice of Mike is part medical testimony and forensic examination and a lucid confessional of a long marriage filled with the cool silence of acceptance and resignation and the hidden secrets of untold desires and brutality.

The most fascinating element in the book is the creatively written forms of Anna’s confabulations, which I found to be brilliant combinations of language that almost resemble poetry.

Some examples include:...

To read the rest of this review, you can visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe's Closet: http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/vital-signs-a-review/

Thanks,
Zara ( )

Not everyone seems to agree with me (!) but I reckon this is a great piece of writing.The people and their relationships seemed very real to me (but I have no idea about the realism of the medical condition featured). The story is all about how the stress of a major medical crisis is making one (or both) of the marriage partners appraise their marriage's history and their role in its possible downfall. McWatt has brilliantly captured the uncertainty that the husband might have in his degree of commitment to his wife in that situation.

My only issue with the book is the role of illustrative material. Not that it was bad, not that it wasn't relevant, its just that I feel I left picture books behind a few years ago :-)

I'm looking for more McWatt but my local libraries have none! Abebooks second-hand selection, here I come. ( )