Schilling: From a Study in Lost Time

On the way up, I'm thinking

Dating from World War I to his painful demise in the late 1940s, this book chronicles the life of rural Louisianan Dr. Schilling in elegant, mesmerizing prose. Guillory, who has taught English at several American universities, uses the perspectives of Schilling and his sister, sons, and wife to reveal how and why one family fell apart. Schilling is disturbed by familial hostility, the deaths of his sister and one son, and his memories of Eustache, a lovely young woman with whom he was infatuated. To save her from a prison sentence for murdering her abusive husband, Schilling testifies that she is insane. Consequently, Eustache is committed to a mental hospital, but later Schilling and the reader learn that she is neither guilty nor insane. Ironically, the old doctor who had given his heart to his patients finds himself dying an agonizing death of heart disease, entirely dependent on morphine and his resentful wife to survive. More than just another good read, this poignant, poetic novel is recommended for all libraries.