Stella Bain

Anita Shreve is an award-winning novelist; her past novels include The Pilot’s Wife and The Weight of Water. Stella Bain is her 17th novel. Although it stands on its own, it is meant to be a sequel to All He Ever Wanted. Shreve’s writing tends to be somewhat spare; Stella Bain is downright stark.

The story opens in 1916 in a field hospital in France when the protagonist awakens with no memory of what has happened to her, who she is, or where she came from. She chooses the name “Stella Bain” and recalls that she can drive ambulances (a rather unusual talent for a woman in 1916). She speaks with an apparent American accent. Her quest to regain her memory consumes her; she demonstrates an ability to sketch portraits, which allows her to earn money to get to London’s Admiralty, where she believes she will regain her memory.

Upon arrival in London, she is sick and weak and leaning exhaustedly against a stone fence in the bitter cold when she is rescued by Lily, the wife of a cranial surgeon. The surgeon is intrigued by Stella’s amnesia, having read about Freud’s emerging “talk therapy” and about success with similar techniques with shell shock. These elements of Stella Bain may draw your interest, and Shreve does a good job describing the state of knowledge in both of these areas in the early 1900s. There is something riveting about reading of these emerging ideas through the eyes of a surgeon of this era and then applying them to his female patient.

The surgeon encourages Stella to use her drawing penchant as a way to tap into discovering who she is and what happened to her, in a sort of free-association-by-drawing. He takes her to the Admiralty time after time until someone recognizes her and calls her by her real name (Etna), which triggers her recollection of life in the States as a married woman, including that she has children and why she fled (this is the tie to All He Ever Wanted).

Eventually Etna returns to America to face her loveless marriage and angry husband and fight a seemingly hopeless custody battle, all the while maintaining her connection with the surgeon in England. At one point, she attempts to explain her condition and treatment as part of her bid for her children, although at that point in history there is no language for either.

Shreve deftly handles the topic of shell shock. The reference to the emergence of psychoanalysis is interesting (although given short shrift by the amazing success the surgeon has with little understanding or training in technique), and the plight of women in the early 1900s is exemplified by the lack of attention to shell shock among women. Etna’s difficulty in keeping her children is excellently portrayed—the best part of the book. All of these plot lines make for an entertaining read.