Infinite Kindness

By Laurie Blauner

In 1867 London, England, Ann Russell, a nurse and a veteran of the Crimean War, deals with issues of euthanasia, medicine, war, sexual identity, and spirituality. In the Crimea, Ann worked with Florence Nightingale; back in England, she still consults her for advice and support. Ann struggles with the transition to civilian life while working at a charity hospital. She also commits acts of euthanasia, a practice she adopted when desperately wounded English soldiers begged her to kill them. Lyrical and questioning, this historical novel explores the timeless concerns of life, death, compassion, and personal growth as viewed through the prism of Victorian England.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0930773802
• ISBN13: 9780930773809
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Black Heron Press
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Problems of sexual identity, grief, spirituality, triage, and perhaps most disturbingly, euthanasia.

Award-winning author Laurie Blauner presents Infinite Kindess, a dark novel set in the mid-nineteenth century, about Ann Russell, a nurse, former co-worker of Florence Nightingale, and veteran of the Crimean War. The medical quandaries thrust upon her include problems of sexual identity, grief, spirituality, triage, and perhaps most disturbingly, euthanasia. She slays cripples, the poor, the degraded, and when she returns to service in wars, upon young enemy soldiers her side has deemed too burdensome to keep alive. The at times shockingly graphic imagery of death is in stark contrast against the vivid descriptions of emotion and internal turmoil in this haunting tale, told through Russell's eyes.