- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (25 Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743212649
- ISBN-13: 978-0743212649
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.2 x 2.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,013,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Doctor's House
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"San Francisco Chronicle" Ann Beattie is an expert at probing the essential mysteries of the human character.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
The winner of the 2000 PEN/Malamud Prize tells the unsettling story of a sister obsessed with her brother and the women he loves and leaves. THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE opens with a woman exploring her own brother's sexual appetites, uncovering his myriad betrayals of his wives and lovers, and of her. Nina, a reclusive copy editor, should have better things to do than track her brother's escapades, but since her husbands death she has become solitary and defensive, and just as obsessive as Andrew. As the novel unfolds, the story of Nina and Andrew is retold by their mother, who at once illuminates and undermines her daughter's account. Finally, the brother speaks for himself, and the deeper Beattie takes us into Andrew's mind, the more his perspective suggests that Nina might be both less innocent and less detached than she maintains. In the guise of exploring their memories of the past, Nina and her mother repress them.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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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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17 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Vague and meandering
11 Mar 2002
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's a three generation family story, told from three different points of view by a sister, a mother and a brother. At the beginning the brother is looking up his old high school girl friends, having sex with them, and telling his sister about it. He's still doing the same thing at the end. The mother is alcoholic and the sister is depressed. This is all the fault of the terrible father.
Beattie takes rather to much to heart the disclaimer at the front of the book that it is not intended to have any "resemblance to actual events,locales or persons."
There's a certain vagueness about everything that I found irritating. Much is made of the fact that the father is a doctor (which makes him arrogant and a bad father and a bad husband) but we never understand what his specialty is. The mother's problems are laid to the oppression of women in the fifties, so time frame would be important, but we are never told what date the action is taking place in. The only work any character does that is described in detail is that of Nina, who is a copy editor. The characters (except for the nasty doctor) can spend very little time working because they're always travelling to meet lovers drinking coffee or wine or eating out, or in pychotherapy. We are never told how much anything costs.
None of this would matter in a short story but by the end of 280 pages is gets tedious. Beattie should read Balzac or Sue Grafton.
Beattie takes rather to much to heart the disclaimer at the front of the book that it is not intended to have any "resemblance to actual events,locales or persons."
There's a certain vagueness about everything that I found irritating. Much is made of the fact that the father is a doctor (which makes him arrogant and a bad father and a bad husband) but we never understand what his specialty is. The mother's problems are laid to the oppression of women in the fifties, so time frame would be important, but we are never told what date the action is taking place in. The only work any character does that is described in detail is that of Nina, who is a copy editor. The characters (except for the nasty doctor) can spend very little time working because they're always travelling to meet lovers drinking coffee or wine or eating out, or in pychotherapy. We are never told how much anything costs.
None of this would matter in a short story but by the end of 280 pages is gets tedious. Beattie should read Balzac or Sue Grafton.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
not worth my time
15 Sep 2005
Format:Paperback
By the time I reached part 3 of this novel, I was sincerely hoping that some culminating event would tie together the separate parts of the novel - I was sorely disappointed. As I read the last few pages of the novel, I thought, why did I bother to read this entire novel? While the foundation and storyline were interesting and had potential, I felt that there was no development - the story never progressed into anything. I found it difficult to be empathetic to any of the characters; the only interesting part was the mother's perspective. Do not waste your time on this story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
I Can't Believe I Read the Whole Thing
9 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover
I read Beattie's novel because I knew the reputation of her short stories and because I'd tried to read three books by other authors already this summer and found them too dreadful to finish. Unfortunately, I wasn't any more pleased with THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE; I think I kept going because I just didn't want to give up again. The dialogue rings false, the psychological basis of the plot feels familiar and didactic, and while the book seems to encourage us to feel that it's building toward climax or at least epiphany, it doesn't. The cast of minor characters feels random and, well, very minor--most so minor I found myself wondering why many of them had been included, and a large part of the tension seems meant to center around the character of Patty, but in the end I just don't know what I'm supposed to think about her. As for the crazy, abusive, doctor father, I didn't buy him at all, and I felt relieved he was dead, otherwise I'd have had to read his side of the story, too.
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