Description of Orphan #8 by Kim van Alkemade

In this stunning new historical novel inspired by true events, Kim van Alkemade tells the fascinating story of a woman who must choose between revenge and mercy when she encounters the doctor who subjected her to dangerous medical experiments in a New York City Jewish orphanage years before.

In 1919, Rachel Rabinowitz is a vivacious four-year-old living with her family in a crowded tenement on New York City’s Lower Eastside. When tragedy strikes, Rachel is separated from her brother Sam and sent to a Jewish orphanage where Dr. Mildred Solomon is conducting medical research. Subjected to X-ray treatments that leave her disfigured, Rachel suffers years of cruel harassment from the other orphans. But when she turns fifteen, she runs away to Colorado hoping to find the brother she lost and discovers a family she never knew she had.

Though Rachel believes she’s shut out her painful childhood memories, years later she is confronted with her dark past when she becomes a nurse at Manhattan’s Old Hebrews Home and her patient is none other than the elderly, cancer-stricken Dr. Solomon. Rachel becomes obsessed with making Dr. Solomon acknowledge, and pay for, her wrongdoing. But each passing hour Rachel spends with the old doctor reveal to Rachel the complexities of her own nature. She realizes that a person’s fate—to be one who inflicts harm or one who heals—is not always set in stone.

Lush in historical detail, rich in atmosphere and based on true events, Orphan #8 is a powerful, affecting novel of the unexpected choices we are compelled to make that can shape our destinies.

My Thoughts

It is 1918 and Rachel Rabinowitz is a four year old girl living with her mother, father, and brother, Sam in a small tenement in New York //city’s Lower Eastside. When their mother is killed and their father leaves, Sam and Rachel are taken away and separated.  Since Rachel is only four, she is taken to the Infant Jewish Orphanage.

At the orphanage she is experimented on by Dr. Mildred Solomon.  She is forced to drink barium which, Dr. Solomon tells her is a “milkshake”.  If you have ever had to drink the stuff, it is definitely nothing like a “milkshake”! Rachel is the subjected to many X-rays that leaves her bald from the radiation.

When Rachel turns six, she is sent to the Children’s Jewish Orphanage and is reunited with her brother, Sam.  However, she is constantly being made fun of by the children because she has no hair.  Due to events that happen Sam is forced to flee the orphanage and Rachel is left alone again.  She only has one friend which she thinks Sam was paying to be her friend.

When Rachel turns 15 she runs away from the orphanage and goes to find Sam.  As an adult Rachel becomes a nurse in Manhattan.  She works at Old Hebrews Home and one of her patients happens to be Dr. Solomon.  Around the same time Rachel finds out that she has cancer, most likely due to the radiation she was exposited to from Dr. Solomon’s experiments.

As you can probably guess, Rachel becomes obsessed with getting payback from Dr. Solomon. 

This book was riveting!  I had a hard time putting down and when I did, I had trouble falling asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about it!  The characters and plot were well developed.   As were the time and places.

This book is said to be based on true events.  I couldn’t help but think about the experiments on Jews in concentration camps.  Even before that it was happening in the U.S. and possibly even worse, there were Jews experimenting on Jews!

I highly recommend Orphan # 8!

4.5/5

I received the ebook version for my honest review.

About Kim van Alkemade

Kim van Alkemade was born in New York. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in literary journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, So to Speak, and CutBank. She teaches writing at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Orphan #8: A Novel.