ABOUT
THE BOOK

James Blatchely breathes and eats through tubes, slipping in and out of a coma. Nuala is the Irish immigrant nurse who coaxes him toward survival. The strange synergy of their relationship is both his link to reality and his inspiration to fantasy. This is the hypnotic story of the world that grows in the silence between them. Nuala means “white shoulders” in Gaelic, and Nuala`s wild red hair falls in disarray over hers. With long fingers that stretch out from delicate wrists, she moves deftly around James: changing his IV, attaching a fresh respirator tube. Nuala`s movements are like dance to him, and through his morphine-clouded mind he hears her Irish spirit sing against the metronome of the life-support machines. He is drawn to the warmth of her. He is obsessed. He carries Nuala in and out of consciousness with him, writing a secret love story in which she is unknowingly the heroine.