A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

by John Murray

Penguin $84

'Butterflies,' says a character in the title story, 'are a metaphor for life. Beautiful, fleeting, fragile, incomprehensible.' They're also a metaphor for the eight stories in this collection. Before turning to writing, Murray practised medicine. He draws on his experiences, bringing us into the clinics and operating rooms of the Third World, where disease and violence affect doctors as well as patients. In Hill Station, an American-born Indian woman witnesses the ravaging effects of cholera in the slums of Bombay. Watson and the Shark follows a trauma surgeon who is wounded by rebels in the jungles of central Africa. He bribes his attackers to spare his life. Murray's characters seek order amid chaos and reason in the face of superstition.