Who will run the frog hospital?
‘My childhood had no narrative; it was all just a combination of air and no air: waiting for life to happen, the body to get big, the mind to grow fearless.’ Narrating is Benoite - Marie Carr, main character of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital and inhabitant of the nowhere town Horsehearts, on the border between Canada and the US. The novel’s perspective shifts between Berie as grown up visiting Paris, in deep conflict with her husband, and the summer she was fifteen and working at the local amusement park with her best friend, Sils. During the course of the summer, Berie’s life slowly spirals out of control, and she is forced to face her relationships with the people around her.
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is a bittersweet tale about being a teenager, and an original account of life in small town America. Funny and sad, this novel contains a deep level of melancholia that will touch those who are able to relate to it, and move those who let themselves be carried away. Lorrie Moore has written a philosophical story that is highly character driven. Berie and Sils are described with all their flaws and faults and the interesting ways these affect their lives. The relationship between them is described realistically and will be recognisable to most teenage girls. The book is relevant to everyone who has been a teenager and especially those of us who have been teenagers in small towns. Who Will Run the Frog Hospital is a small book that leaves a mark, and that might make you to look at your own adolescence in a new way.