The first time I noticed Jody Shields’ The Winter Station, I tagged it as a book I had to read based on the title alone. I also remember reading the synopsis and thinking it was interesting, but when I finally got around to reading the book, I must have confused it with another because it wasn’t about what I thought it was about at all.
“So what was it about?” you ask. Good question!
During the freezing cold winter of 1910 in Kharbin, a remote but major Russian controlled rail outpost in Manchuria, Northern China, the bodies of two men are found frozen in the snow outside Central Station. Because the deaths were of two Chinese men, they were not considered relevant, and the city’s chief medical officer, Baron von Budberg, was not called. There were no death certificates, the bodies were not examined, and were quickly forgotten. And then, suddenly, people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate. Baron von Budberg is a Russian aristocrat who finds himself facing a plague that he and his colleagues are struggling to contain before it spreads to the rest of the world on the trains that come and go so frequently. Bodies are disappearing. The doctor finds himself battling Russian custom, as well as human prejudice, and the dichotomy of western medical science and his own respect for Chinese traditional medicine. In his fight, he finds himself allied with a black market mercenary, a French doctor, and a theatrical Chinese dwarf. He hides from the world in the arms of his young Chinese wife, who also has secrets.
This book sounds a lot more exciting than it is, but it isn’t a bad book. I read a lot of reviews for it after I completed it and the main complaint seemed to be this wasn’t a thriller. I guess the problem with the blurbs on the jacket of the book is that the they’re trying to get you to buy the book, not necessarily enjoy it. The blurb on this book does make it sound like it’s a quick paced race against time, and while it is a race against time, it’s not a mile a minute seat of your pants race against time. It’s an atmospheric slow burning medical drama with someone trying to do the right thing while being pulled in several different forceful directions and frustrated by bureaucracy.
I have to say, it was a bit slow but overall I enjoyed it. It took me awhile to enjoy it though. Much like my experience with Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, I was quite close to the end before fully understanding and liking the book. The protagonist, von Budberg, is a good man who is a well written, fully developed character. Some of the supporting characters could have used some fleshing out, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. There was some beautiful language in this book, but I spotted some incongruities in the writing – sometimes a character would start speaking that I wasn’t even aware was in the room. Again, not a deal breaker, just something that took me momentarily out of the story.
This is another historical fiction work that has highlighted how lacking my historical education has been in many cases. The jacket says this is based on a story that has been lost to history, but it’s not *that* lost, I think. I can find stuff on it with a Google search – the story coming to light again due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Winter Station was based on the 1910-1911 plague outbreak in Manchuria. The general outline of events is this: a pneumonic plague that was believed to have originated from a tarbagan marmot infected with bacterial pneumonia jumped to humans who were probably hunting the marmots for their fur. An airborne disease that was also highly contagious, this plague had a near 100% fatality rate and wiped out about 60,000 people over the course of one winter.
This is totally not fair to tarbagan marmots, by the way, because they are freaking *adorable.* They’re like little fat woodchucks who are mostly harmless but who definitely carry pneumonic disease that can spread to humans when the marmots are eaten (especially if the meat is uncooked) or if a flea bites the human after biting an infected marmot (like the plague spread by rats in Europe, but the marmots are WAY cuter).
The Manchurian plague was one of the first disease outbreaks that highlighted the need for a multi-national response, foreshadowing international medical groups, like the World Health Organization. Because Japan and Russia had economic interests in Manchuria and the disease was so fatal, the Chinese government requested help from the international community and support from foreign doctors.
At least one of the characters in this book was real. Dr. Wu Lien-teh was a Cambridge trained Malaysian doctor who was called in to assist the situation. He advocated for the use of masks as personal protective equipment, to be worn by doctors, nurses, patients, and when possible, the population at large. The mask he developed was a predecessor of the N-95, popular today as PPE medical providers use to protect themselves from Covid-19. In the book, Dr. Wu faces massive prejudice from certain members of the majority white, European team of doctors, but Dr. Wu turns out to be right, so he get the last laugh, as it were. Baron von Budberg, to his credit, thinks very highly of Dr. Wu in the story.
Dr. Wu probably deserves a book all his own. He may have one that I just haven’t found yet, for all I know. But he practiced medicine until he was 80 and helped develop the first hazmat suit.
Again, The Winter Station was *not* a fast paced thriller but a slow burning medical drama. I greatly enjoyed it, although I didn’t realize how much I was enjoying it until it was nearly over. As long as you know it isn’t a Dan Brown novel going in, there’s no reason why you can’t also enjoy it.
words in scarlet ink 