Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2006
615 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A hospital is preserved, afloat, after the Earth is flooded beneath seven miles of water. Inside, assailed by mysterious forces, doctors and patients are left to remember the world they've lost and to imagine one to come. At the center, Jemma Claflin, a medical student, finds herself gifted with strange powers and a frightening destiny. Simultaneously epic and intimate, wildly imaginative and unexpectedly relevant, The Children's Hospital is a work of stunning scope, mesmerizing detail, and wrenching emotion.
"The Children's Hospital, a sprawling and impassioned morality tale in which a catastrophe of biblical scale wipes out nearly all life, human and otherwise, on Earth…despite its weaknesses, The Children's Hospital establishes Chris Adrian as a remarkable American fabulist in the tradition of Melvin Jules Bukiet and Tony Kushner, writers who define and confront the terrifying moral choices of a new century." - The Washington Post.
"Chris Adrian's excellent first novel, Gob's Grief, placed him among the top ranks of these writers. His second, The Children's Hospital, confirms that he is possessed of the imagination, ambition and deep-veined intellect that will allow this evolving literary movement to deliver on its possibilities." - The New York Times.
".... he spends too much time trying to wow us with medical jargon, which slows the pace. Sadly, not recommended." - Library Journal.
"This dense and lengthy satirical-but-sincere novel may challenge readers' patience with its fairy-tale-like characters and its long-windedness, but Adrian's knack for surprise and his ability to find meaning in seemingly ridiculous situations is rewarding." - Publishers Weekly.
"Starred Review. Adrian attempts a near-impossible summit, and delivers a devastating, transformative work that is certain to burn in the minds of readers long after the final page's end of the end of the world." - Booklist.
"[Adrian] is a writer of prodigious talent who holds your heart in his hands ... And despite or because of his unlikely world view, he is irresistible. He sails into the inexplicable, seeking meaning; and the reader, gripped by curiosity and admiration, scrambles on board. Adrian's prose here is writing at its best--medical magical realism, you might call it ... We will be lucky as long as he continues to write." - Boston Globe.
"One of the most revelatory novels in recent memory... Cleverly conceived and executed brilliantly." - San Francisco Chronicle.
This information about The Children's Hospital was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chris Adrian was born in Washington, D.C. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he received his MD from East Virginia Medical School. "Every Night for a Thousand Years", the New Yorker story from which this novel stemmed, was anthologized in Best American Short Stories 1998.. His fiction has also appeared in The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, and Story.
Mr. Adrian is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center.
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