A quiet novel of medicine and personal growth.
In Goetz’s (Bending the Twig, 2002) novel, a doctor is torn between his ambitions for groundbreaking research and his commitment to providing medical care in a rural community.
Goetz’s narrative follows Martin Cromlech from childhood in the 1960s through medical school to a successful career. After his sister Jenny’s death—attributed to physician error—motivates him to go into family practice in his Nebraska hometown, Martin sets off for medical school, where his skill and intelligence conflict with his disdain for the traditional curriculum and his impatience with his professors. A short-lived romance with classmate Diana is his only extracurricular activity. The book then moves ahead to the late 1970s; Martin is a star researcher in Chicago, drawing attention for his work treating hypertension while still wondering if he should practice medicine back home. A conflict with the new head of Martin’s lab, whose data and results Martin does not trust, as well as the reappearance of married but separated Diana finally push Martin into making a decision about where he belongs. The book delivers a compelling portrait of its place and time, and readers with medical backgrounds will enjoy the attention given to first-year dissections and the conversations among researchers discussing details of their work. Despite his early arrogance and lack of direction, Martin never becomes a truly unlikable character, and his redemption is effected through his fight for scientific truth and the humility he learns as he renews his relationship with Diana. The bulk of the narrative is character-driven, the plot taking lead toward the end as the conflict between researchers drives the story. The prose can be unpolished, with awkward phrasing—“Steady Alex Koenig…had even managed a small philosophical grin when an angry patient with wide-spread cancer fouled him with her feces”—and interactions that fall flat, including a cringe-worthy depiction of Japanese scientists: “Herro, Dr. Cromrech.” At other times, the prose is simply florid: “In his dark bedroom, drifting in that blurred margin between wakefulness and sleep, Martin James Cromlech fancied he heard, measured and far away, the spirit of Henry David Thoreau rhythmically applauding.”
A quiet novel of medicine and personal growth.Pub Date: May 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5089-7333-1
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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