★★★★☆ Worst possible time to become a physician

Eleanore of Avignon

Elizabeth DeLozier

Elizabeth DeLozier's Eleanore of Avignon is a story of the Black Death in Avignon, Provence, France. Even aside from the plague, there was a lot going on in Provence in 1348. It was that strange period in the history of the Roman Catholic Church when it was not literally Roman -- the popes lived in Avignon, not to be confused with the later even stranger period when there were simultaneously two guys claiming to be the pope. Clement VI was pope. His physician Guy de Chauliac (Guigo) would later became famous for an influential book on surgery, Chirurgia Magna. To make life even more exciting, the pregnant Queen Johanna of Naples arrived in Avignon while the plague was raging to be tried for the murder of one of her husbands. All of this really happened.

In 1347 our hero, Eleanore Blanchet (an entirely fictional character), an herbalist and midwife living with her twin sister and father, runs into Guigo and manages to persuade him to take her on as an apprentice. The plague then beginning to rage through Europe reaches Avignon in January, 1348. Elea and Guigo are of course in the thick of it. Then Johanna arrives and demands the services of a midwife -- Elea has no choice but to accept the charge. Being a physician during a plague is a dangerous job, not only because of the plague itself, but because of the superstitions of the people, many of whom look with suspicion on a woman practicing as a physician.

It's a good story, and Elea and Guigo are excellent characters.

For me it hit a little differently, because just before reading Eleanore of Avignon I had finished Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues. Thus I had within the last few days read a scientific history of that very epidemic. DeLozier has a doctorate in Physical Therapy and knows very well how infectious disease works. She is careful to present Elea and Guigo's understanding of the plague and its causes with historical authenticity, which is to say with dreadful scientific inaccuracy. This tension between the real nature of the plague and Elea and Guigo's inevitable catastrophically poor understanding of it gave the plot an extra edge for me.

It's a good story. Moreover, it seemed to me to accurately and authentically present an interesting time in history. Recommended.

Eleanore of Avignon on Amazon

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