A White Wind Blew

January 14, 2013
Music comes to a tuberculosis hospital in the prohibition-era American South in this absorbing historical, based on a real Louisville sanatorium operating at the turn of the 20th century. At Waverly Hills, the young and old alike are sequestered, and many won’t survive. Coffins are sent away in a tunnel to hide the high death rate. Walking among the ill is Dr. Wolfgang Pike, an amateur composer and would-be priest who was derailed from his godly purposes by his late wife. Haunted by her memory and desperate to aid his patients, Pike schemes to bring more music into the sanatorium, forming a band with the patients. But bureaucracy, the ongoing march of death among his musicians, and the KKK, whose members don’t approve of Pike’s Catholicism and racial liberality, provide obstacles to success. From secret rehearsals to hijinks with patients on the loose, from profound and tender moments to unspeakable violence, the orchestra’s journey from idea to entity enthralls the whole hospital community. Though a romantic backstory and the racial strife can feel formulaic, Markert displays great imagination in describing the rivalries, friendships, and intense relationships among the often quirky and cranky terminally ill, and the way that a diagnosis, or even a cure, can upset delicate dynamics. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House.

January 1, 2013
A tuberculosis epidemic, as seen through the eyes of a sanatorium doctor driven by his love of God and music. According to the author of this first novel, Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium was a real place on a hilltop outside Louisville, Ky. The locals were fearful of the white wind blowing down on them. In the winter of 1929, two doctors handle 500 patients. Some will leave symptom-free, but more will die. Dr. Wolfgang Pike finds playing his harmonica or violin soothes his patients. The 31-year-old doctor inherited his love of music from his Protestant father; where Wolfgang differed was in his embrace of Catholicism. His pursuit of the priesthood faltered when he met the lovely Rose outside a cathedral. The two young Catholics ministered to soldiers during the great flu epidemic of 1918. They married; five years later, Wolfgang lost Rose in a traffic accident. By then, the seminarian was a doctor, still hoping to become a priest one day. At Waverly, his hectic life is further burdened by Ku Klux Klan members harassing him. They burn a cross outside the nearby "colored" hospital. Their mischief is counterbalanced by the arrival of a new patient, McVain, an ornery guy but a talented pianist. Soon, the novel settles into the familiar groove of an inspirational work. McVain overcomes his bigotry to play with a black flutist and a Jewish violinist. Wolfgang organizes the healthier patients into a choir; there will be a concert. Naturally, there are setbacks; the senior doctor is opposed, and there's even a horrific lynching, but the concert is a triumph for conductor Wolfgang and pianist McVain, even though they are the last notes he will ever play. The action is not quite over. Wolfgang succumbs to carnal temptation for the second time and marries a nurse, Susannah. This one will be a brief marriage, as her tuberculosis proves fatal. Markert's weakness for murderous melodrama trivializes a dark time in medical history.

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February 15, 2013

Working at the Waverly Hills tuberculosis sanatorium outside 1920s Louisville in the midst of a deadly epidemic, Dr. Wolfgang Pike is desperate to raise patient morale. When a former concert pianist checks into the sanatorium, Wolfgang has found his answer: he will form an orchestra and transform the patients' lives--as well as his own--through the redemptive power of music. VERDICT The setting of this debut novel is well chosen and researched, but the cluttered narrative is uneven in tone. In addition, Wolfgang's selfish focus on his own emotional needs rather than the welfare of his patients makes him a markedly unsympathetic protagonist. The author also glosses over the real horrors of tuberculosis for the sake of the sentimental idea that music is the best medicine. Readers looking for a purely heartwarming tale, however, may be alienated by darker plotlines involving the Ku Klux Klan, suicide, religious and ethnic prejudice, and a veteran's traumatic memories of World War I.--Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2013
Markert has interwoven three seemingly unrelated subjectstuberculosis, music, and racisminto a hauntingly lyrical narrative with operatic overtones. Though he is unable to finish the requiem he is attempting to compose for his late wife, music is a balm for Dr. Wolfgang Pike's troubled soul. Will it prove similarly effective for his patientsmany of them incurably illat the Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium, on the outskirts of Louisville, or will bigotry and fear, not to mention death, stand in the way? Forming a band and a choir with the assistance of a patient who just happens to be a former concert pianist, he is determined to unleash the physically and spiritually healing powers of music. Viewed as pariahs by the citizens of 1920s-era Louisville, who fear the ravages and the spread of the white plague, the unlucky residents of Waverly Hills apply a variety of coping mechanisms in order to come to grips with their individual and collective pain. A soaring tribute to the resiliency of life in the face of death.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)