The Resurrectionist: A Novel Part 19

THE EVENTS OF THE RESURRECTIONIST ARE drawn from actual medical practice in the southern United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the late twentieth.

For historical grounding I am indebted primarily to two late scholars, Abraham Flexner and Robert L. Blakely.

Abraham Flexner was a crusader for medical college reform in the early twentieth century; his report for the Carnegie Foundation, ent.i.tled Medical Education in the United States and Canada, was published in 1910. Flexner's expose of the schools of his era-many of them rife with charlatanry, operated without regulation for pure profit-ushered in a new era of medical reform. For sheer revelatory content, his report rivals any novelistic invention.

In 1989, the archaeologist Robert Blakely was called to the Medical College of Georgia when human remains were discovered in the earthen cellar of the campus's oldest building during renovations. His work, aided by the cooperation of MCG authorities, culminated in the publication of Bones in the Bas.e.m.e.nt: Postmortem Racism in Nineteenth-Century Medical Training (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, 1997). Though I have taken the liberty of changing names and locales from the scholarly account, the character of Nemo Johnston is drawn from the enigmatic biography that Bones in the Bas.e.m.e.nt sketches of Grandison Harris, a slave purchased by the MCG faculty prior to the Civil War. Harris functioned as the school's janitor, butler, and body s.n.a.t.c.her-or resurrectionist, in the parlance of the day. With the faculty's silent endors.e.m.e.nt and support, Harris routinely pillaged Augusta's African American cemetery, Cedar Grove, until his retirement in 1905. Harris died in 1911, having never divulged his activities and without facing official censure for carrying out his nocturnal duties. To date, the location of Grandison Harris's remains in Cedar Grove is unknown.

These are the facts, the known historical record. With them I've attempted to tell another kind of truth.

-M.G.

July 4, 2012.

Acknowledgments.

My sincere thanks to Keith Stansell, MD; Robert Bailey, PA; Shelby Bailey, RN; and the late Michael Casey, PhD, all of whom provided invaluable guidance on matters of modern medical practice and anatomy.

To my many close readers and closer friends-Kristen (first, always), Amy Bowling, Nancy Sulser, Helen Braswell, Kay Largel, Floyd Sulser, Paul Rankin, Steve Yates, Scott Sutton, and Park Ellis-thank you for always asking to see the next page; it kept them coming.

For invaluable help along the way, I am grateful to my parents, Wendell and Jane Guinn, and to Kathleen Yount, Tammy McLean, Phoebe Spencer, Taylor Batey, John Evans, Maude Schuyler Clay, Langdon Clay, Thomas Ezell, Tina Brock, Jerry Ben-Dov, Sharon Ben-Dov, and the members of the Hard Times Literary and Drinking Society.

To Alane Salierno Mason, for her astute editing and for taking a chance on my work, thank you.

And to Andre Dubus III, what words suffice? Andre-thanks for everything.

end.