Reviews
Praise for The Last Patient
Laurie Devine, bestselling author of “Nile,” “Kronos,” and other “Devine Saga” historical novels
A fascinating, deep dive behind the Iron Curtain in Romania, “The Last Patient” is a multi-generational family saga that confronts everyday struggles for love, survival, and identity under the grip of Eastern Bloc Communism. Its core story chronicles an opportunistic doctor’s uphill climb for a bigger piece of the relatively meager socialist pie in Bucharest—a bigger apartment, status jobs, foreign vacations, and ongoing do-or-die opportunities to defect to the West. What is a triumph for author Tudor Alexander is his realistic portrayal of characters—the bombastic patriarch Kostea, his long-suffering wife Clara, their son and assorted in-laws uncles and cousins—who seem so familiar and endearing that often painful concepts like party loyalty and food shortages matter less than its culture of deeply loving family ties and traditions.
J. Wynn Rousuck, author of Please Write: A Novel in Letters and award-winning Theater Critic at WYPR, Baltimore’s NPR Affiliate
The Last Patient is a beautifully written, absorbing account of one family’s life in Romania under Communism. Focusing on the father, a noted surgeon, this novel/memoir shows the forces that drive even those who love their homeland to leave it and start their lives over. A moving story populated with rigorously delineated characters, The Last Patient is an especially important book now, when immigration to the United States is increasingly misunderstood.
Lauren Goodsmith, Founder, Intercultural Counseling Connection; author, The Children of Mauritania, The Path of the Sun
Tudor Alexander's “The Last Patient” offers a vivid, often poignant portrait of one family enduring and emerging from the dark period of Ceausescu’s regime. At once intimate and sweeping in scope, the novel evokes the specifics of time and place through deeply atmospheric prose and dialogue that rings utterly true. With both clarity and compassion, Alexander depicts the dreams and desires, strengths and frailties of each of his characters. As they navigate the convolutions of Communist rule and the even greater complexities of the heart, they variously cling to and relinquish hopes and expectations, and make tenuous deals with others, and with themselves.
Review by Kate Robinson, US Review of Books
"What was an immigrant then, but a person with his legs in two countries and his heart riven?"
Alex Duvan, publishing as Tudor Alexander, penned this timely tribute to his Romanian parents and grandparents as a sensitive and honestly wrought historical family drama. The biographical novel covers nearly five decades in the life of Kostea Bardu, a Romanian surgeon. The story turns full circle, starting from the moment Clara Bardu, Kostea’s wife, goes into labor with their son Toddy near the outset of Kostea’s career in Russian-controlled Bucharest until he tends to his final patient, once again Clara, as she negotiates the ravages of cancer in the United States.
The emotionally poignant plot juxtaposes chapters devoted to Kostea with chapters devoted to Clara, who is also an accomplished physician, and with chapters starring the couple’s son Toddy, Clara’s mother, and Kostea’s mother. The family deals with many hardships during their years in Romania, especially during the Russian occupation from 1944–1954. While Kostea is often tempted to defect to the West as opportunities arise, he instead toes the line and nurtures the private and political connections necessary to protect his close-knit family and polish his social standing in Bucharest. A big fish in a little pond, Kostea is often unaware of how his temperament affects others while his achievements and his ego expand beyond his empathy for his family and friends.
Alexander’s portrayal of the proud, misogynistic man is memorable, and his quiet but articulate prose supports the character-driven, literary ambiance. The author seems at his best while delivering the ever-increasing tension marking the years before Kostea nearly loses all he’s worked for during a midlife crisis. Love and loyalty, loss and resilience, and the drive for survival at all costs make this novel a celebratory reminder of the humanity present in every nation and culture around the globe.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review
MWBR
The Last Patient opens with a 1993 Maryland setting in which wife and mother Clara lays dying, her husband Kostea and son Toddy caring for her in her final hours. The main story embraces Clara and Kostea’s past, however, with the first chapter returning to 1950s Bucharest and elsewhere, which is experiencing political turmoil and the raise of the proletariat.
The dangerous environment has been building for a good while, Dr. Kostea Bardu notes, with the contagion of political repression now infecting people they know:
“...we are small potatoes, but it doesn’t matter. What started at the top extends now to everybody. Simply put, it’s terror.”
In this past, Clara is nine months pregnant, still working as an intern in the hospital as she awaits their first child. A rap on the door brings more bad news on the cusp of her welcomed first child:
“Comrade Bardu, your apartment has been subdivided,” the policeman informed Kostea, handing him an authorization with the emblem of the precinct. “These are Comrades Sorin and Marta Ionescu, and their five-year-old son, Radu. Your second bedroom was assigned to them, with access to your kitchen and bathroom.”
Kostea paled. Haltingly, Clara had followed him, and he heard her breathing behind him. He turned and pointed at her rounded belly. “There must be a mistake. We need the space. We’re expecting a baby.”
The policeman shrugged. “I’m merely executing an order. You know there is an acute housing shortage after the war. All of us make sacrifices.”
By now it should be evident that Tudor Alexander pays close attention to the juxtaposition of personal and political climate, bringing characters to life that are experiencing the blows of decisions they no longer make for themselves, which are imposed upon them from above.
Their assertive, demanding new “roommates” introduce further adversity and struggle to the young couples’ lives, illustrating the divide that comes from Communist activists who are as passionate about their patriotic purpose as they are about their newfound rights under this repressive regime.
As Alexander unfolds this couple’s shifting world, uncertainty, changes, unreliable happinesses, and affairs emerge that further impact their lives and perspectives about relationships, faithfulness, and life under the hand of Ceaușescu.
Readers receive thought-provoking, realistic insights about this period of time and how people not only survived, but sometimes flourished (albeit in unpredictable ways) as they raised families, faced the usual concerns of aging and change, and forged new pathways of discovery and life against a political backdrop that was anything but kind.
As the decades unfold, shifting viewpoints between Clara and Kostea reinforce differences in ethics, values, and experience that inject intriguing, thought-provoking reflections for readers:
At the trailhead, the driver turned his truck around. “Happy trekking,” he said. “And enjoy the time with your son.”
The path led uphill through the forest. The air was velvety and fragrant, the light borrowing a green hue from the trees. Kostea walked ahead. As the incline increased, so did the distance between him and Clara.
From Toddy’s emigration and profuse letter-writing over a five-year period to Clara and Kostea’s dangerous decision to escape the culture and place they have long called home, Alexander weaves social, political, and personal struggle in a compelling manner.
Readers may think they’ll need prior familiarity with the politics and regime of the times—but they do not. The backdrop and history are intricately referred to and woven into a story that proves deeply compelling even to those who may know little Eastern European history or culture.
Libraries that choose The Last Patient for their collections will find it worthy of book club and reading group recommendation for its outstanding blend of personal and political reflection.
Given modern times and questions about survival, fascism, freedom, and life trajectory, The Last Patient is especially relevant, important reading that should be chosen and discussed by any thinking readers interested in past precedent, history, and future possibilities.