Oxygen
A Novel
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4.3 • 144 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Jodi Picoult meets Atul Gawande in this bestselling novel that blends compelling women’s fiction and medical drama to create an “involving debut that’s just what the doctor ordered” (People).
Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived, and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted her life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie’s best friend, colleague, and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path she’s chosen, the bridges she’s burned, and the colleagues and superiors she’s mistaken for friends.
A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie’s family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie and is busy raising a family. Although Marie has been estranged from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate responsibility for their father’s care is falling on her.
As her carefully structured life begins to collapse, Marie confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds and the price of her own choices. Set against the natural splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of hospital operating rooms, Oxygen climaxes in a final twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Powered by Cassella's 25 years in the medical field, this nicely wrought debut follows the travails of an experienced Seattle anesthesiologist after an eight-year-old patient dies while under the knife. In the aftermath, Dr. Marie Heaton is entangled in both her grief and a malpractice lawsuit. As the many meetings with attorneys blur together and autopsy results are awaited, Marie, who regrets having missed out on the "intended stream of marriage and motherhood," mediates the domestic squabbles in her sister's family; leans on and gets leaned on by colleague and ex-lover-turned-best friend, Joe Hillary; and tries to come to a d tente with her widowed father, who is losing his vision and with it his autonomy. As Marie is increasingly scrutinized, a few unexpected twists slyly work themselves into the investigation of the death, and the ice between Marie and her father slowly thaws. The prose is competent and the plot moves at a brisk pace, but the real hook is Cassella's knowing portrayal of the health industrial complex's inner workings; she knows the turf and doesn't spare readers the nasty bits.
Customer Reviews
Good book
Good story. First thing—my only complaint about the book is the overabundance of description. I became annoyed at the overuse of both simile and metaphor. Could have cut out about 20 pages and had more than enough.
Second thing—The anesthesiologist is one of the most important people in the operating room and one of the most sued in the profession. This story is a realistic portrayal of what's happening in healthcare today. I wish I could say that what happened in the book would never happen in a hospital, even a good one, but it does—and it has. Doctors and nurses, like all humans make mistakes. And now that medicine is a for-profit business there is less humanity in healthcare, less accurate information in patient charts, and more cover-ups. Big business people are greedy and run hospitals with as few professionals as they can get away with. Unfortunately, everything has a price, even human lives, and the legal system works primarily for those in power and the disadvantaged are generally the losers.
Great book
Well written and a wonderful story line with a surprise twist. My first time to read this author…but won’t be my last.
Amazing medical drama
Well written, engaging and with a few unexpected plot twists. Loved this book. Even if it was only Marie’s words, thoughts and perspectives, it somehow is sufficient to paint a thorough picture of what happens.