Harp on the Willow

December 11, 2017
In this gripping work, Hoff (American Anthem) probes the quiet life of Irish-American country doctor Daniel Kavanagh in the prosperous farm community of Mount Laurel, N.J. in the years immediately following the Civil War. Daniel’s life is simple and consistent; he tends to patients and carries on a low-key romance with the local school mistress, Serena Norman. Nearby is the largely immigrant mining town of Owenduffy, divided from Mount Laurel by a “river of social, religious, and economic differences.” Dr. Kavanagh doesn’t normally practice in Owenduffy, but when the alcoholic mining town doctor is nowhere to be found and a young boy comes to beg help for his ailing sister, he puts his misgivings aside. There he encounters Addie Rose Murphy, a young woman who helps care for the sick of Owenduffy. As Dr. Kavanagh spends more and more time tending to patients on both sides of the river in the midst of a scarlet fever epidemic, he must confront his own limitations, Serena’s disapproval of his new work, and his growing feelings for Addie Rose. Hoff’s enjoyable historical romance strikingly displays the murky water of class differences and the challenges of life for immigrants through the ethical eyes of Dr. Kavanagh.