Source:Island
First of all congratulations to Dr Carmel Miranda for winning the 2020 Gratiaen Prize from among five competitive short listed works, two by well-known authors. This should be Carmel’s first published writing – a novel of 262 pages – hence the congratulations are doubly deserved.
Crossmatch – three narratives
Authored by medical doctor Carmel Miranda, ‘Crossmatch’ is a three pronged novel with a medical student’s travails running alongside a murder mystery and a mysterious puzzle about birth. The first two narratives are absorbingly interesting and the kudos due to Carmel are that she weaves them to progress side by side, seamlessly with the medical student vital to the mystery story as it is she who first suspects foul play, both due to her being in the Colombo Hospital where the victim dies and her medical knowledgeability to ask relevant questions and follow leads. Also in typical Sri Lankan fashion the murder mystery unravels due to obliging an aunt to “see my driver’s nephew who met with a road accident and is in hospital
There is a third strand of mystery and its introduction halfway in the book. It starts with the narrator coming up with the puzzle of her own blood group which does not match her mother’s – a doctor herself who died of cancer
fairly soon after her single confinement. The end of the book is the untangling of this mystery which is melodramatic, and to me, calling for suspension of belief. The resolution of this plot reverts to the institution that was the centre of the major mystery plot. As I said its resolution is melodramatic and far too coincidental for belief by a sharply rational reader.
Two story lines of three critiqued
I shall deal somewhat at length with the former thread – the medical student’s life of good and bad times and her chasing clues and ultimately seeing resolution of her crime mystery. I will mention the least possible about the mystery and the puzzle since the reader has to unspool them along with the author who very ingeniously, yet taking her time, scatters clues along her medical student routines which the reader follows until resolutions at the end. Apt here to reinforce my views is a quote from Arjuna Parakrama, Snr Prof English, University of Peradeniya, on the back cover: “(Her) first novel creates a unique narrative that combines a sensitive and nuanced understanding of the Lankan medical world with a powerful and moving, yet unsentimental psychological account …”
Personal narrative
Whether merely biographical or firsthand autobiographical, the background narrative of Carmel’s book is completely interesting. Who among us is not curious about medical stuff; some even macabre-ly so. She gives plenty food for intake of details of diabetes and resultant coma; childbirth including breech emerging of the baby; brain damage and electro-convulsive therapy (ECT); autopsies; and even a beggar’s maggot infested wound (ugh!). All of course woven into her story most often seamlessly and necessary to her main mystery story to either place a character or incident in place. She enlivens her narrative of a medical student’ life – hectic, harried, loaded with work but also companionable with her group of friends – with relevant episodes and characters. Her ward rounds, character traits of specialists the students work with, are all absorbingly interesting.
She goes into detailed medical explanations when necessary. She deals with an autopsy with details of cause of death etc more than once, but these are essentially vital to the crime/mystery narrative, When she describes a diabetic coma it is to bring out characteristics of a pathologist who is involved in her crime narrative. Her detailing semblances between drunken breath and that of a severe diabetic (pg 124) is necessary to the story. Often she is involved in a case of childbirth giving details such as doctor vs experienced midwife which enlivens the narration. But once in awhile she oversteps the mark; meaning she explains minus relevance to her story. One instance of unnecessary detailing and emerging as just ‘showing off’ is on pg 121 when she writes “midwives swear that deliveries are more common round the time of the full moon” and goes into the etymology of the word lunatic bringing in Roman roots of the word.
