Loved this one. The point of view is introspective, which helped me really get to know and understand the main character, Dr. Perry. I was interested in the questions the narrator struggled with about choice and chance, gender identity, and the gap between male and female autonomy and self-determination. And intrigued by the fact that how people react to you depends so much on how you present yourself.

This book made me wonder how many other women have presented themselves to the world as male in order to get an education or other rights and privileges. ( )

I wanted to like this book but was faintly disappointed as it had a touch of "today's ideas" on historical events. This is the story of Margaret Bulkley born to an Irish family on their way down and with brains. Due to an acquaintance of some importance and influence, Margaret was given the idea to turn herself into a man in order to attend Edinburgh medical school. Still with a slight built, she managed to enroll and succeed very successfully in spite of much ribbing from classmates.

Eventually she went to Cape Town as a military doctor. Here she became acquainted with the Cape Governor and they became friends. The Governor, once discovering her real sex, fell in love with her and they began an ongoing affair leading to her pregnancy. Leaving for a remote island, she gave birth to a son but returned to Cape Town to find the Governor had married. It is during this section of the book that seems a bit "off" for the times. Although it has been historically noted that the person known as James Barry did give birth to a child, the affair seems a bit of a stretch. (Although not offended by the word "fuck", it seems overused her and a bit out of the time).

Still a good read and made me curious to read about the real James Miranda Barry. ( )

British-army, 19th-century, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, romance, medical-doctor, medical-treatment, England, Scotland, South- Africa*****

Can you imagine making the decision (at age 11) to erase your life and become someone very different, even by gender, just so you can get an education? The female in her day was disregarded except for her inheritance and usefulness but very rarely educated. In her new incarnation she was able to go to medical school in Edinburgh and progressed to becoming a medical officer in the British army. She knew what her gender was and why she had to keep it a total secret, but in the novel (and possibly in life) she fell in love with the governor in Cape Town, South Africa and may have had a child with him. This is a novel, but it is based on the life of a real person who made great strides in medical care at cost to herself. Both the novel and the real doctor James Miranda Steuart Barry, FRS born c. 1789–99; died 25 July 1865 are amazing!
I requested and received a temporary digital ARC of this book from Little, Brown and Company via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ( )

The Cape Doctor, by E.J. Levy, is a wonderful read, but before I discuss the book, I want to discuss background a bit. (Warning: the pronouns will shift around some.) The Cape Doctor tells the imagined life story of a real historical figure about whom very little is known: Dr. Jonathan Mirandus Perry. Perry attended medical school in Edinburgh, then became a military doctor posted in South Africa and later in Jamaica. He was ahead of his time in insisting on sanitation and nutrition; he fought quack remedies and their makers; he performed the first known successful C-section on the continent of Africa.

After Perry's death, it was discovered that his body was, apparently, female. This final revelation has led to two very different interpretations of Perry's life. One view, held by those looking for a feminist historical narrative, presents Perry female-identified, despite passing as a man for most of their life. They see Perry's story as a demonstration of the ridiculous lengths women had to go to in the early 19th Century in order to achieve an education and profession. Another view is that Perry was transsexual, identified as male, and should be considered a ground-breaking figure in LGBTQI+ history.

The Cape Doctor is built around the first of these views. Levy presents Perry as a woman who spent her life passing as a man in order to achieve personal goals. Radical transgender web site EE Ottoman takes the second view, making the case for Perry's male identity: https://acosmistmachine.com/2015/11/2... The disagreement about Perry's identity has led to a very bifurcated response to The Cape Doctor. Those who see (or are comfortable seeing in the context of a novel) Perry as female are generally enthusiastic about the book. Those who see Perry as transgendered see this book as an erasure of transgender history.

My take—although I am saying this as someone who is not a historian and who is just beginning to learn about Perry—is that neither case can be made conclusively enough to prove the other false. If I had to guess how Perry identified themselves (and it would be a guess), I'd say that Perry probably was transgendered, but I can also understand why Levy chose Perry as a character to serve as the center of a novel exploring alternate female identities in the 19th Century. That's as far as I'll go with this discussion, aside from saying I'm looking forward to reading more about Perry and seeing what (pronoun shift) their life can teach me about both female and trans identity.

I flat-out loved The Cape Doctor. Levy is very clear that what she is writing is fiction, and I'm willing to approach the novel knowing it can't tell me how Perry themselves identified.

I loved The Cape Doctor for the insights it offered into female identity. Perry as created by Levy is very articulate and deeply reflective. Her (pronoun shift) inner world is complex. She notes the changes in bearing and personality she has to develop to be perceived as male: assertiveness, self-confidence, an aggressive sense of humor, an insistence on defending her own views—which includes arguing for women's rights. She's fascinated by the way women approach her once she's perceived as male and enjoys flirting with them. Levy gives her version of Perry opportunities to renounce her decision to present herself to the world as female, which Perry does not embrace. Perry's focus in this novel is always on being a medical practitioner and having the freedom of movement and opinion that external male identity provides.

Don't read The Cape Doctor as history. Don't assume you know the "real" Perry once you've read it. But do, if possible, let yourself learn from the ruminations on gender and identity that Levy's Perry raises. If you want to know about the historical Perry, look for nonfiction titles that explore what we can know about who he/they/she really was. ( )

An interesting fictional treatment of the secret life of Dr James Perry, an eminent 19th century physician, THE CAPE DOCTOR examines how Perry began life as a poor Irish girl and, through the intervention of a wealthy patron, reinvents herself as a boy and then a precociously clever medical student and honors graduate who is posted to South Africa as a military surgeon. There, maintaining her secret, she becomes a favorite of the Colony's governor, Lord Somerton, progressing rapidly to better, higher paid positions. Levy chooses to tell her story in the first person, with Perry speaking from beyond the grave. There is a love story of sorts here but, more than anything, Levy has made Perry's story into a feminist manifesto emphasizing the young doctor's successes and accomplishments and the importance of career over a personal life. Levy very obviously did a tremendous amount of research on the customs, dress and pomp of the nobility in the 1820s and 1830s, with numerous side references to the colonies, the newly independent United States, as well as emerging independence in Latin America. While I found Perry's story historically "interesting," I could not warm to any of the characters here. Perhaps it was the Dickensian style (or maybe Austen? - an author I've never been able to read), but the characters, both major and minor, seemed more historical than human,thereby making it nearly impossible to care for them. And, from the opening pages, I could not stop thinking of an obscure film I'd seen twenty-some years ago, THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO, with a similar plot, a young woman passing as a man, but in the rough and primitive American West of the 19th century - an excellent film. THE CAPE DOCTOR works well as history, but is, I think, less successful as fiction. Recommended for history buffs, Levy's book would fit well in a reading list for a Women's Studies course.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )