A Good Doctor's Son: A Novel: Amazon.co.uk: Steven Schwartz: Books

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4 Reviews

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

2.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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1.0 out of 5 stars A rambling, superficial accounting of desperate events., 28 Dec 1998

By A Customer

Choosing a fictional novel is an infrequent happening for me. This book reinforced the reasons. It was written for consumption of time for the author. This book was nothing more than a collection of desperate events in a young man's life with little substance or connection.

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3.0 out of 5 stars A good read though not as rewarding as "Therapy"..., 16 Jun 1998

By A Customer

This book was sent to me by a friend of Steven's who also turned me onto "Therapy" which I adored and have been sharing freely...While I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was sorry to have it end the story was not as easy to relate to as "Therapy", but that is part of the reading experience, to take yourself out of what you know and can easily relate to, that's how we grow. I do love Steven's writing style and hope that he is working on another book already because we're waiting!

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3.0 out of 5 stars Not nearly as good as Therapy, 22 Mar 1998

By A Customer

I was floored by Therapy -- it was such a terrific read, and the characters so vivid. I scooped up A Good Doctor's Son as soon as I saw it in bookstores and was more than little disappointed when I put it down. Every writing class teaches writers "Show, don't tell." It's amazing how many professional writers fail to do that. A typical line from the narrator David: "I could tell by the way Becky beamed at her brother that she'd always idolized him." "Becky beamed at her brother" would kind of do it for us, wouldn't it? David tells us so much, it keeps us removed from the events themselves. Yet, when I really wanted to know more about what he was thinking, it wasn't there. Why did he fall out of love with Myra? Why did he give up going to the Quaker retreat? Why did he proceed marrying the all-American girl he knew he didn't love? The novel never really came alive for me. In Therapy, you became so utterly aware of the character with epilepsy's fear of embarrassment and his sense of estrangement from the world. The telling here is one step removed from feeling. Everything is delivered in such a cursory style -- even the scene when David gets his nose smashed against the wall while using a urinal -- isn't depicted with enough detail to generate much emotion in the reader. To feel real pain and sorrow over the three-year-old girl he accidentally killed, it would have helped to know more about the girl. Three-year-olds are not so devoid of personality that this couldn't have been done. I know killing a child is intrinsically a horrible thing, but to generate more feeling than the average newspaper reader gets when they read "Child struck by car," it helps to know more about what makes that victim an individual. I might have been more moved reading about the accident, or felt David's guilt more profoundly if I knew. As Therapy demonstrated, Schwartz is a gifted writer, but the characters here didn't, for me anyway, have the same vividness or depth.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Some problems, but a good read nonetheless.
Schwartz's "Therapy" is a much better novel than this follow up. I highly recommend "Therapy" to readers looking for a memorable and moving novel. Read more

Published on 7 Mar 1998

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A Good Doctor's Son: A Novel (Hardcover)

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