The Resurrectionist: A Novel
Dr. Jacob Thacker, a medical resident on probation for Xanax abuse and now serving as interim head of public relations at a small, prestigious medical college in Columbia, South Carolina, must come to terms with the college’s institutional sins during the Civil War years when the mutilated bones of African American cadavers are discovered buried in a basement of the historic college. Basing his work on incidents of historical medical practice in the South, first-novelist Guinn spins the tale of Nemo Johnston, the resurrection man or body-snatcher of the title, who, as a salaried slave of the college, raided the local black cemetery for fresh cadavers for use in the anatomy lab of the medical school. A historical novel (thanks to extended flashback chapters—the book’s strongest sections), a cursory look at medical ethics and race relations in the New South, a satire of PR in academia, all with a healthy dose of lurid southern gothic thrown in, Guinn’s book struggles to achieve a consistency of tone but will, nonetheless, appeal to the general reader with a taste for the macabre. --Jonathan Schwartz