Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain

Intelligent, imaginative, and consummately researched, Kirsten Menger-Anderson's novel Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain treats a family of physicians from the progenitor's arrival in New Amsterdam through his seventh great-grandson's death. The 13 chapters comprise interlocking short stories related by place (New York City), theme (intention vs outcome in medical practice), and character (the van Schulers and their descendants, the Steenwycks). A genealogical chart in the frontispiece helps readers navigate the complex labyrinth of relationships.

Devoted to the alleviation of suffering, the Steenwycks' physicians are themselves susceptible to madness in the form of psychopathological disease or neurological disease. Dr Olaf van Schuler strives to find a cure for his “lunatic mother” only to lose his own cognitive function. Dr Stuart Steenwycks Jr, a plastic surgeon “so concerned with appearances he's forgotten what a face can hide,” is diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Menger-Anderson's careful delineation of historical context and her droll narration soften her portrayals of the more dubious family members. They include Theodorus (born in 1735), Edith (born in 1804), and Abraham (born in 1880). Theodorus presides in the story “My Name is Lubbert Das, 1765,” an homage to Hieronymus Bosch's The Cure of Folly: Extraction of the Stone of Madness (translated from Dutch, the inscription on the painting reads, “Master, cut the stone out quickly, my name is Lubbert Das”). A trepanist like Bosch's hapless physician, Theodorus seduces Lubbert (“He leaned closer and whispered, ‘I’ve cured men like you’”), drills a hole in his skull (“The doctor smiled his horrible red smile and asked Mother to wait in the sitting room while he performed the operation”), and sets his cap for the patient's widowed mother. Lubbert emerges physically no worse off for the procedure; emotionally, though, his hopes have been raised and dashed.

Two additional stories deserve mention for their treatment of neuroscience. In the eponymous, at many points hilarious “Reading Grandpa's Head, 1837,” Edith Steenwycks Tucker wrests control of the family estate from her father, a distinguished physician who, in a failed attempt to thwart Edith's machinations, submits to a phrenological examination. “‘You have rather large irritability organ,’ [the phrenologist] says, eyes closed in concentration. ‘And quite a developed sense of self-importance.’”

In “The Siblings, 1910,” Edith's great-nephew Dr Abraham Steenwycks, “after squandering the family fortune on ill-fated bets,” abandons his apprenticeship with Gottlieb Burckhardt and returns home from Europe to familial chaos. (Abraham's father, Dr Benjamin Steenwycks, has expired in the manner of Nelson Rockefeller.) The younger Dr Steenwycks has little tolerance for disorder apart from that of his own making. In just over a year, Abraham takes over his father's practice, becomes engaged to the judge's daughter, and performs a leucotomy on his mad sister Lillian.

The strengths of this clever novel far overshadow its only significant flaw, a narrative distance that inhibits readers' emotional engagement. A notable exception occurs toward the end of the book, as Dr Stuart Steenwycks Jr (the plastic surgeon mentioned earlier in this review) tells his physician daughter that he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:

“I can't make this look any better,” Dad says.

I reach for his hand; his fingers are moist, cold. I can't tell him everything will be okay; he knows better . . .

 . . . He sends me away to my work, to my choices, but his hand falls beside him. He lacks the strength for anger or hope, approval or sorrow, though I listen for one of those, one in particular, in his voice.

Prose ★★★★ Illustrations ★★★★ Science NA Usefulness NA

Correspondence: Ms Alexander, 763 Belmont Pl E, No. 208, Seattle, WA 98102-4453 (elizabethalexander1912@yahoo.com).

Financial Disclosure: None reported.