“The Doctor's Wife is the story of two couples, a doctor and his wife (duh!) and an artist and his wife in small town America. The doctor, ordinarily obstetrician/gynaecologist in the local hospital, moonlights in an abortion clinic helping out an old school friend. His wife is having an affair with the artist who is married to a total nut-job. The story starts as the doctor is attacked and nearly killed, only to be saved from death by the artist's wife who drives him out to her old house and locks him in the cellar to recuperate. The book weaves its way through the characters' back stories, twists and turns aplenty, before coming to some sort of conclusion.
I hate giving up on books. Hate it. But I had to with this one. From quite early on the plot holes drove me insane. To start with, a woman "raised a strict Catholic and still longed for its sacred rituals" goes to the local protestant church because there is no Catholic church in her town. Leaving aside the fact that a strict Catholic is highly unlikely to turn to a Protestant congregation in the absence of a Catholic church in her town, the doctor works in a Catholic hospital and the artist and the doctor's wife both work in a Catholic college. What kind of town supports a Catholic hospital and Catholic college but no Catholic congregation? At the very least, there would be a chaplain celebrating mass in those institutions.
Added to that, when some of the doctor's nurses find out that he is moonlighting in the abortion clinic, they refuse to work for him, "One nurse anaesthetist, a devout catholic, had herself removed from all of Michael's cases." So if this nurse is devout, where is she worshipping in the Catholic church-less town?
The characterisation leaves a lot to be desired too. The doctor's wife is a feminist, an educated woman but she appears to fall for a man who has no charm or any other qualities that would entice a woman into an extra-marital affair and who says such things as, "Married to someone like her...... it's a fucking pain in the ass.", along with other, even less flattering remarks, of his wife. The artist- twisted, dark and troubled- drives a shiny black Porsche with red leather seats; his pride and joy. Call me a cynic but those people just don't sound real to me.
The last straw, that made me give up, was when the author referred to Aerosmith as heavy metal. "The car grumbled to a start and the radio came on, Aerosmith smashing the silence. Simon shut it off, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry."
"I didn't know you were into heavy metal."
"I'm into heavy basically. Heavy is good. Heavy is really good.""
Heavy is good but Aerosmith is as heavy as it gets? Pfft. I had to shut the book before I felt the urge to burn it.
And you know, I'm really disappointed because the concept of story is quite good what with anti-abortionists, right-wing Christian groups, marital infidelity and what-not. And the cover, my God, the cover is so beautiful. I had the book in my possession for a quite a few months before I even realised that there is a woman standing on the porch of the house. She frightened the crap out of me when I saw her for the first time and I really expected that when I looked back, she would be gone- a ghostly figment of my imagination. This book promises to be such a good read but I'm afraid the plot holes frustrated me to the point of distraction. I can't go any further with it.”
StellaMac wrote this review Thursday, July 17 2008.
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