The Doctor Stories [Hardcover]

Richard Selzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

The Doctor Stories is the definitive collection of Richard Selzer's most loved short stories and essays as well as a new novella entitled "Avalanche" and an introduction detailing his literary beginnings. Each piece in this compilation explores what it means to be a doctor, to tend to the sick and dying, and to heal. Drawing from his classic books, including Confessions of a Knife, Mortal Lessons, and Letters to a Young Doctor, Selzer portrays the interactions of people at moments of crisis and drama. His signature style is apparent in every sentence humane, observant, passionately descriptive, and particular, always connecting the intimate with the largest questions of life and death. The Doctor Stories is the crowning work in the career of one of our most distinguished authors.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only two stories in this collection of 27 tales and essays are new, but they and the lengthy introduction offer a good sampling of both the strengths and flaws of Selzer's prose. The tone is set in the discursive, self-conscious introduction when the former surgeon declaims one time too many that he is not a genius. He also admits that "The language is as far from the Minimal as you can get." Indeed, it is this tendency toward verbal overload, the use of fustian flourishes and arch literary allusions, that prevents many of these tales from achieving their potential. Selzer's insights into human nature, especially in moments of trauma or grief, are often profound, and his precise articulations of the workings of the human body are at all times arresting. There are some resonant metaphors in all these short narratives: "His words were ivory balls that rolled through her one into the other, setting up echoes, clicking." But Selzer often destroys the effect by exaggerating his characters' emotional responses. In "Avalanche," a story of a woman's doomed love for a gaucho in a remote corner of the Argentinean pampas, the menace and mystical premonitions are forced and overwrought. "Angel, Turning a Lute," is a story within a story that is an admirable exercise in style whose elements do not fuse. On the other hand, many of the other tales, compiled from four previous collections (Confessions of a Knife, etc.), are trenchant and moving. In the end, this uneven collection impresses readers with the author's perceptions of the fine line between good health and sudden death, daily life and tragedy, and the capacity of people to deal with the deepest traumas and to survive with dignity. Rights: Georges Borchardt.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A sampling of the writer/surgeons short fiction, 25 tales drawn from four volumes (Imagine a Woman, 1990, etc.). Selzer provides a lengthy, rather discursive, and quite typically charming introduction, yet never explains why these particular stories were selected. Though he says that ``my real subject is language itself,'' this is only partially true; while Selzer's prose is rich and his cadence measured (``It's my pleasure to use as much of the English language as I can''), it's the subject matter that make these tales so distinctive. No other writer in recent memory has so well fathomed the complex ways in which illness tests and alters us, the often unavailing (and clumsy) struggles of physicians to heal body or spirit, or the ways in which, in the face of mortality, we attempt to assert, to define, our fragile humanity. The best tales focus on the particulars of such struggles: ``Tube Feeding'' traces the despairing love of a husband for his wife, whos dying of an especially horrible malady; ``Pipistrel'' describes, with considerable originality, a mothers attempt to help her autistic son create art; ``Whither Thou Goest'' follows a womans urgent quest to track down the recipient of her husband's heart several years after she had donated his organs. She yearns to hear it beating once again. And ``Imagine a Woman'' shows how a woman, dying of AIDS, slowly finds herself easing into a rapturous acceptance of life and its end. A useful introduction to a distinctive body of work. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 389 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA; 1st edition (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312186878
• ISBN-13: 978-0312186876
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book, but not all "doctor" stories, June 15, 2000

By 

atmj (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Doctor Stories (Paperback)

When I bought this book I was expecting stories of a primarily doctor's point of view. Though all of the stories, detail various medical conditions, they are not always from the perspective of the doctor. This is also a mostly fictional work. (I'm sure if I read the back cover I would have found that out). However, it is not dissappointing. It is interesting how the author has woven a story very detatched from a medical format around a specific condition in each case. I found it very interesting and plan to buy more of this author's books. Some of the stories have a melancholy side that I'm sure effects the medical community as a whole in hopeless cases or ones where the patient does not seek care beyond diagnosis. It was a good read none the less.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, January 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Doctor Stories (Hardcover)

I was enthralled by his words. They flowed and moved with each character.....and the story he unfolded. Wonderfully smooth like silk. And thoughtful, like a brief snag in your emotions. I could not put this book down.