It is 1943 - the height of the Second World War - and Berlin has essentially become a city of women. In this page-turning novel, David Gillham explores what happens to ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times, and how the choices they make can be the difference between life and death.
It is 1943 - the height of the Second World War - and Berlin has essentially become a city of women.Sigrid Schröder is, for all intents and purposes, the model German soldier's wife: She goes to work every day, does as much with her rations as she can, and dutifully cares for her meddling mother-in-law, all the while ignoring the horrific immoralities of the regime. But behind this façade is an entirely different Sigrid, a woman who dreams of her former lover, now lost in the chaos of the war. Her lover is a Jew.But Sigrid is not the only one with secrets. A high ranking SS officer and his family move down the hall and Sigrid finds herself pulled into their orbit. A young woman doing her duty-year is out of excuses before Sigrid can even ask her any questions. And then there's the blind man selling pencils on the corner, whose eyes Sigrid can feel following her from behind the darkness of his goggles.Soon Sigrid is embroiled in a world she knew nothing about, and as her eyes open to the reality around her, the carefully constructed fortress of solitude she has built over the years begins to collapse. She must choose to act on what is right and what is wrong, and what falls somewhere in the shadows between the two. In this page-turning novel, David Gillham explores what happens to ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times, and how the choices they make can be the difference between life and death.
City of Women by David R Gillham
The object of the study was to test the hypothesis that mental illness is associated with drug abuse by pregnant smokers. We abstracted data from the State of Missouri Risk Appraisal of Pregnant Women database on 239 (115 black and 124 white) women who attended an inner-city hospital from 1999 through 2000. Thirty-four percent abused drugs, 16% used alcohol, and 8% reported having a history of mental illness or psychiatric treatment. On multivariable logistic regression analyses, pregnant smokers were more likely to use drugs if they had mental illness (odds ration [OR], 7), consumed alcohol (OR, 2), or were black (OR, 3). In conclusion, drug abuse is associated with mental illness, suggesting that this behavior may be a marker of underlying mental illness among pregnant smokers. Therefore, in addition to initiating social service intervention, the identification of drug abuse by pregnant smokers should prompt a mental health evaluation. 2ff7e9595c
Comments