- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Scribner (Jan 29 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743212649
- ISBN-13: 978-0743212649
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 476 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
In The Doctor's House Ann Beattie gives us a brother, a sister, and a mother--all attempting to make sense of themselves, each other, and their tyrannical father/husband. The novel consists of three narratives. First, Nina, a forlorn copyeditor still mourning her husband's sudden death, takes an interest in her brother Andrew's past sexual exploits and relationships (he contacts ex-lovers who then seek out Nina to mull over his wayward promiscuity). Second, Nina's alcoholic mother, always distant from her children and hurt by her physician husband's self-absorption and countless affairs, offers her view. Third, Andrew analyzes his father's behavior and gives us his take on looking up old flings.
Unfortunately Nina and Andrew aren't terribly engaging: a depressed Nina trudges through life, and the majority of the novel proceeds accordingly. The mother's point of view is the most interesting. She shares hypotheses about why her children are inseparable yet estranged from their parents. The reader hears about the father only through the family's accounts of his rage, twisted logic, and proclivities, all of which easily justify the dysfunctional state of the family. Nina summarizes her family in succinct prose: "My father never smiled; my mother narrowed her eyes when her lips turned up, as if happiness caused her discomfort. Andrew did smile: a slow, almost dreamy smile, his face so relaxed he might have been falling asleep to sweet dreams as he looked into your eyes. I never saw that expression except for the times we were alone." The Doctor's House has its moments, but fans of Beattie will continue to champion her stories foremost. --Michael Ferch
From Publishers Weekly
Beattie continues to prove herself one of our best contemporary writers of short stories, but she has rarely managed to attain the same level of achievement in her novels. Though her ability to make an ordinary situation completely fascinating is intermittently on display in her latest full-length effort, the contrived anglings of the plot ultimately sink this composite portrait of three family members linked by the traumatic events of their past. Siblings Nina and Andrew survived neglect and outright cruelty their mother was an alcoholic and their father was a sadist and a philanderer by banding together. Now Nina is a copy editor living in Cambridge, Mass., still grieving over the loss of her husband, who was killed in an accident. She has her hands full with the volatile, immature Andrew, who has been looking up women he knew in high school for a rather bizarre serial-sexual high school reunion. As much as she would like to be left alone, she is forced into the role of counselor to several of his conquests. The narration shifts briefly to Nina and Andrew's mother, who talks about her marriage to the tyrannical doctor and her difficulty connecting to the children, but mostly she indulges in "self-serving re-creations of her past." Andrew narrates the final section, offering his take on his family and the women he has been pursuing. What all three have in common is a hatred for the monster they once lived with. Unfortunately, the parallels of the siblings to the parents Nina marries a doctor and later becomes withdrawn and bitter, Andrew is sexually compulsive seem facile and, while the cumulative effect of their anecdotes is chilling, it's hard to feel much sympathy, since their gossip, self-pity and self-deception undermine the trauma.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
SOME TIME AGO, my brother Andrew began looking up girls from high school. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
SOME TIME AGO, my brother Andrew began looking up girls from high school. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not bedtime reading,
By Rod Kessler (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Doctor's House: A Novel (Hardcover)
I started reading "The Doctor's House" as bedtime reading but soon realized that the book required real brainpower to appreciate, more than I could give it in the drowsy state that seems to suffice for many other contemporary novels. There's genius at work in the author's technical accomplishment here, bringing to life on the page three consciousnesses that are as articulate and complex as actual complicated humans (blindspots and warts included). This novel is narrated just as much as your own life is--which is to say zilch. In this interrelated triptych, as in life, you're on your own to "get it"; Beattie leaves it to you so see as far as you can and to construe as much as you can. The book serves as a model of what fiction can do far better than any of the other arts--probing the inner reality (thoughts, emotions, perceptions, idiom) of its characters. Norman Mailer wrote years ago that an author couldn't create a character more intelligent or complex than he himself was. Thank goodness Beattie has the capacity to create such compelling characters. It's up to readers to meet her at that level of sophisticated perception.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thoughtful study of compulsive sexual behavior,
By
This review is from: The Doctor's House: A Novel (Hardcover)
In my opinion the central subject of this book is the compulsive sexual behavior of Andrew, the narrator of the novel's third section. The outlines of his activity are described by his sister, Nina, in the first section; in the second their mother describes what life what like at home when they were growing up with her and their father, the doctor of the book's title, who had many extramarital affairs. Yes, in some ways this is a grim topic, and all three narrators seem very unhappy, though Andrew perceives this perhaps less fully than the other two. But the structure of the book, with the intersecting perspectives, is intriguing, and I for one wanted to start over again as soon as I finished to see whether Nina's opening narrative was compromised by what I'd learned from the other perspectives. I think this could be a darkly fascinating book for anyone interested in why some men are sexually compulsive and the effect that has on the women in their lives--sisters as well as girlfriends or wives.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Back to my shrink,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Doctor's House: A Novel (Hardcover)
This book made me want to scream or hit someone or (saddest) make another appointment with my old shrink, whom I finally got the courage to "divorce." It's Beattie at her worst and it don't get much worse than that.
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