A Fierce Radiance (54 page)

“What about the research you’ve done?”

“I’m a physician, I have a responsibility to do more than push paper around and arrange compromises among business interests. That’s what I began to realize that night, in that crowd of desperate people outside the Institute.” Amputations, abdominal wounds. Sending
nineteen-year-old boys home without their legs. Without a hand, without an arm. Military medicine, saving lives. Relieving pain. Stopping infections with the new weapon of war.

“Maybe I could write to you.” He managed to keep his tone even.

“Look you up when I get back.”

Claire knew that a woman never said no to a man going to the front. If a man was going to the war zones and he thought he needed you, if he wanted to imagine your face when he fell asleep at night, you gave him permission whether you liked him or not, even if you secretly wished you would never see him again. You gave him a hope to come back for. You might not be waiting for him when he got back, but at least you would have helped him to survive.

“Yes, of course, Jamie,” she replied automatically. And because he was leaving for the front on Monday, because he might die there and she would never see him again, she felt an urge to reach up, slide her arms around him, and kiss him good-bye. Yet it was a futile urge, after all that had happened between them, and she fought against it.

Jamie waited for her. He would never press her. He’d gotten this one concession, and it felt like a blessing: he would look her up when he returned.

They circled back to town. Collected her possessions at the hotel. He accompanied her to the train station and waited with her on the platform. The platform became crowded. Boys in uniform, mothers in fine dresses and high heels, fathers in suits and ties: You dressed up to see your serviceman son off at the station. After all, you might never see him again. The sisters and mothers cried. The fathers and brothers pretended not to.

The train arrived too soon, even though it was twenty minutes late. Now it was beside them, waiting.

“All aboard,” the conductor called.

Jamie took her shoulders and pulled her close. He hugged her as tightly as he could, and kissed her on the lips. He felt her lips open to
his, felt her kissing him in return, felt her pushing her body against him.

The train whistle blew. Claire knew she had to pull away from him. She didn’t want to. They pulled away together. With him beside her, she waited her turn to board the train. She climbed the steps, and he handed up her case and her equipment bags. Others followed, so she had no choice but to go in.

Feeling still the memory, the imprint, of his hands upon her back and shoulders, the moisture of his lips upon her cheeks, she hurried to the window. She joined the newly boarded passengers leaning toward the glass. The passengers knocked on the windows, to get the attention of those outside searching for them. The train began to move. One last look, one last wave…that might have to last a lifetime. She saw him. How handsome he was. The love of her life. He was searching for her but couldn’t see her. The lowering sun was reflecting off the windowpanes, into his eyes. The train speeded up. He was lost to her view.

T
o write
A Fierce Radiance
, I spent many months reviewing books, newspapers, and periodicals dating from the World War II era. Although penicillin and other antibiotics are essential to our daily lives, the history of how they came into existence is little known. I felt compelled to explore this story.

After the British scientist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, he struggled without success to develop it into a viable medication. Penicillin was virtually forgotten until the Second World War broke out in Europe in 1939. Under the pressure of the war, British scientists looked at penicillin once more. Because of advances in technology, they had better luck than Fleming, although production remained heartrendingly difficult. As the Blitz intensified and Britain faced increasing hardships, penicillin research shifted to the United States. When America entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the mass production of penicillin came under the jurisdiction of the same government organization that would supervise the development of the atomic bomb. At D-Day, in June 1944, every medic going ashore in France carried penicillin in his pack. So successful were the pharmaceutical companies in mass producing penicillin that within five years after the end of the war, penicillin was worth less than the packaging it was sold in.

In the early days, penicillin was harvested and purified in small labs and tested on patients waiting nearby. Although the FDA existed, it did not have the regulatory authority that it now holds. Estimates are that
roughly a million doses of penicillin were given before a patient suffered an allergic reaction; if the first patient to receive penicillin had experienced an allergic reaction, the drug may well have been abandoned. Antibiotics do produce a variety of side effects, however. For example, the first antibiotic to treat tuberculosis, streptomycin, discovered in 1943, can cause deafness.

As I pursued my research, I was struck by the fact that penicillin, a natural product, did not receive commercial patent protection, whereas the antibiotics that followed did, even though they, too, were natural products. This change intrigued me.
A Fierce Radiance
combines fact and fiction to create, I hope, an authentic portrait of a moment in time. The Hanover company is fictional, and therefore its prized antibacterial medication, Ceruleamycin, is also fictional, but Merck, Pfizer, and the other pharmaceutical companies mentioned are very much real and several are still prominent today. Many of the antibiotics (which I call “the cousins”) that followed penicillin, including Aureomycin and Erythromycin, were developed in the same way as Ceruleamycin, beginning with researchers collecting soil samples from around the world.

The main characters in
A Fierce Radiance
are fictional, but several of the secondary characters are real, including Henry Luce, Clare Boothe Luce, Vannevar Bush, Dr. Chester Keefer, John Smith of Pfizer, and Dr. Thomas Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute. Anne Miller was indeed the first American to be rescued from death by penicillin. In each case, I have portrayed these individuals as accurately as possible. The events of the influenza epidemic of 1918 in Philadelphia took place as described, including the death carts that churches sent through the city streets to collect the bodies of their parishioners. Penicillin was in fact tested on burn victims after the Cocoanut Grove Fire. The Rockefeller Institute, now called the Rockefeller University, still has the humanitarian goals described in the novel. I have, however, simplified the various levels of government bureaucracy involved with penicillin development, and occasionally I have compressed time.

Claire Shipley’s work as a photojournalist was inspired by, and in some cases based on, actual stories that ran in
Life
magazine during the war years. For example, the stories about the Johnny Jeep hat, and about taking care of pets during bombing raids, did indeed run in
Life
.

For readers who would like to learn more about the development of antibiotics, I recommend:
Penicillin: Meeting the Challenge
by Gladys L. Hobby;
The Enchanted Ring
by John C. Sheehan; and
The Forgotten Plague
by Frank Ryan, MD. For the history of
Life
magazine and the work of women journalists during World War II:
The Women Who Wrote the War
by Nancy Caldwell Sorel; Life
Photographers
,
What They Saw
by John Loengard; and
Margaret Bourke-White
by Vicki Goldberg. For life on the home front during World War II:
Don’t You Know There’s a War On?
by Richard R. Lingeman and
No Ordinary Time
by Doris Kearns Goodwin. And for New York in the 1940s:
The WPA Guide to New York City
and
Greenwich Village
,
Today & Yesterday
by Berenice Abbott and Henry W. Lanier.

Penicillin and the antibiotics that followed have changed the lives of virtually every human being in the past seventy years. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics developed from the beginning, however. Today, resistance is a major medical problem. Unless antibiotic use is curtailed, or new drugs are developed, humanity could easily return to the era when otherwise healthy adults died from a scratch on the knee.

I
give special thanks to Marnie Imhoff for welcoming me to the Rockefeller University, and to Carol Moberg for so generously sharing her extensive knowledge of the history of the Rockefeller Institute and of antibiotic research. Alfred Jaretzki III, MD, provided his insights into medicine and medical history, answering a million questions with the care, good humor, and encouragement that for many years have made him a dear friend as well as advisor. Professor Gil Rose of Swarthmore College assisted with the Latin. Bella Bankoff offered her memories of New York during the 1940s. Hannah Isles kindly shared her personal reflections on some of the issues raised in the novel. The librarians at the Rockefeller University, the New York Society Library, and the New York Public Library were unfailingly patient and helpful. Any inaccuracies are, of course, my own.

With her clear-sighted wisdom and discernment, Claire Wachtel, my brilliant editor, made this novel possible. She has my profound and eternal gratitude. Michael Morrison, Jonathan Burnham, and the staff of Harper Collins gave
A Fierce Radiance
their utmost attention. I thank Julia Novitch for her kindness, knowledge, and precision. The evocative cover was designed by Vaughn Andrews. For their many talents and generosity, I also thank Diane Aronson, Shelly Perron, William Ruoto, Eric Levy, Heather Drucker, and Anne Weiss. At ICM, Tina Wexler and Elizabeth Perrella smoothed my way with their bright spirits. My deep appreciation goes to my marvelous agent, and friend, Lisa Bankoff, who
not only stood by me during the years I wrote this novel, but also reviewed the manuscript with her remarkable literary acumen.

I have been blessed by wonderful friends who’ve inspired me with their support, encouragement, and affection. For wise, warm counsel and much-needed laughter, I thank Alexandra Isles, and Ann Darby, Roxanne Donovan, Cornelia Dopkins, Dick Dopkins, Beth Gutcheon, Cindy Halpern, Marnie Imhoff, Grace Ledbetter, Ida Nicolaisen, Heidi Rotterdam, Jeff Scheuer, Laura Scheuer, Carol Shapiro, Elisa Shokoff, the late Robin Magavern, and of course, Richard Osterweil.

Above all, I thank Michael Marissen. He knows the reasons why.

Jacket photography © Corbis

Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews