Description de l’éditeur
Barney Livingstone and Laura Castellano are childhood neighbours who share an unforgettable friendship.
From the crucible of med school's merciless training, through the demanding hours of internship and residency to the triumphs - and sometimes tragedies - of their daily professional lives, we follow Barney and Laura to unsettling celebrity and unsatisfying love . . . until their friendship ripens into passion.
But they have yet to learn the ultimate lesson: that their devotion to each other, even their outstanding medical gifts, may not be enough to save the one life they treasure above all others . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his most skillfully written novel to date, Segal ( Love Story , The Class ) tackles a timeworn but engrossing theme: the grueling education of doctors, and the toll exacted by their careers. As Segal sees it, many physicians are ``wounded healers'' who know that ``to care is to crack'' in this brutally competitive, sometimes poorly self-policed profession. When childhood friends Barney Livingston and Laura Castellano enter Harvard Medical School in 1958, they are soon physically and emotionally overwhelmed by mountains of demanding coursework, a classmate's suicide and the vivisection of clumsily anesthetized dogs. Later, Barney, a Manhattan psychiatrist, witnesses the heartwrenching suffering of mental patients at Bellevue Hospital, including his tragically misdiagnosed former basketball coach. Pediatrician Laura is harshly penalized by tyrannical superiors who resent her complaints about their conduct. A medical-school classmate, brilliant black surgeon Bennett Landsmann, encounters racism within and beyond the medical establishment. Seth Lazarus, another class member, faces murder charges for a mercy killing. With his usual facility, Segal spins a highly readable story that addresses the gravest, most pressing issues facing doctors today. 250,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; author tour.
