Flight of the Wild Swan

This was not quite like any biographical novel I’d ever read before. It follows a familiar pattern – beginning in the childhood of a well-known woman and breathing life into her beyond what would be considered common knowledge – but it does so in an unfamiliar mold. The book is broken up into very short segments, some less than even a page, each giving a snippet of the life of Florence Nightingale. At times, the sections read almost like poetry.

At first, I was skeptical. Was this only a way to make the book stand out? Would it prove to be nothing more than a gimmick to hide lackluster characterization? With a well-known figure like Florence Nightingale, writing a novel based on reality can be a difficult balance to strike.

Before long, however, I was completely swept away. The writing is beautiful, stark and luxuriant by turns. Most of what I know about Florence Nightingale is about her later life, and reading about her early years felt at times like a revelation. I thoroughly enjoyed Flight of the Wild Swan, and I highly recommend it.