The Doctor's Wife

Amazon.com Review
A suspense novel crossed with a literary exploration of infidelity and marital rancor, Elizabeth Brundage's ambitious debut, The Doctor's Wife, provides more than the usual kick of adrenalin for readers. In a small town in upstate New York, urban transplants Annie and Michael Knowles--he is a rising OB/GYN, and she is a once-trailblazing journalist who has settled into a teaching job--hope to escape the noise and bustle of the city. But both are drawn into danger: Annie begins an affair with an infamous (and married) painter, Simon Haas, and Michael is coaxed into helping an ex-lover at her family planning clinic. He performs abortions for poor women, and tries to ignore the cars that follow him home and the increasingly threatening phone calls. ometimes Brundage perfectly navigates the twisting, overlapping elements of her complicated story line, but other times gives us too much at a time. And one of her characters, Simon's disturbed wife Lydia Haas, is so fascinating that she puts the others in the shade. Nevertheless, this is a rich first novel and a promising beginning for its author. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Set against the backdrop of the battle for abortion rights, this timely but stilted debut thriller features a perfect yuppie couple. Michael Knowles is a successful OB-GYN and his wife, Annie, is a popular journalism professor; they have two precious kids and a big, airy home in upstate New York. But once Michael accepts a position at the only abortion clinic in town, the already heavy strain that his doctor's schedule puts on their marriage sends Annie into the arms of a colleague, notorious painter Simon Haas. Meanwhile, Michael receives increasingly hostile threats from creepy antiabortion activists, suggesting that one, or both, of the Knowles are targets of a vicious terror campaign. The painter's childlike young wife, Lydia, as a menacing, tormented Bible-thumper scarred by a harsh, loveless upbringing, is the enigma that fuels Brundage's examination of what happens when we are drawn to the very things that promise to destroy us. But the lessons here are heavy-handed and the characterizations mechanical. The bad guys wear mirrored sunglasses as they force Michael off the road; the good guys wear jackets emblazoned with angel's wings; and the dialogue is delivered in short sound bites scripted for a TV cliffhanger. The Knowles' storybook marriage takes a number of dark, twisted turns, but the lack of character nuance and depth blunt Brundage's stab at psychological suspense.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
The prologue to this compelling novel consists of the murder confession of an obviously unhinged person. So, from the first sentence, readers are hooked--and stay hooked till the end. The plot centers on two marriages and the flaws within them that lead to disaster. Michael and Annie Knowles have a seemingly perfect marriage; Simon and Lydia Hass quite obviously do not. When Michael, an obstetrician, agrees to do abortions part-time at a free clinic in Albany, New York, he starts a chain of events that shatters both couples' lives. The complex, cleverly constructed narrative provides a slow unfolding of the intricate relationships among the characters. Third-person narration, rotating point of view, and skillful use of flashback gradually construct the anatomy of a catastrophe and provide suspense, momentum, and believable characters. This page-turner will appeal to a broad readership and will do well in public libraries with audiences as diverse as Ruth Rendell fans, lovers of Rosellen Brown's Before and After (1992), and those who could not put down Stephen King's Delores Claibourne (1992). Ellen Loughran
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
"The memory starts here, in my apron pocket, with the gun."

So begins The Doctor’s Wife, a stunning debut novel about four people and the cataclysmic intersection of their lives. Michael is a rising OB/GYN at a prominent private practice in Albany, New York; he also moonlights at a local women’s health clinic. But Annie, his wife, has become tired of her workaholic husband’s absences, and the soccer-mom lifestyle has worn thin. She begins a passionate love affair with bad-boy, fading celebrity painter Simon Haas—an affair that quickly goes awry when Simon’s wife Lydia, who is also the model upon whom he built his career, discovers the truth.

Abortion, local evangelism, marital disenchantment, and the rifts of social class: Brundage takes on the fault lines of our era with a deft hand. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.