Simon & Schuster
July 2008
On Sale: July 1, 2008
Featuring: Marie Heaton
288 pages
ISBN: 1416556109
EAN: 9781416556107
Hardcover
$25.00
Suspense, Contemporary Women's Fiction, Fiction
With the compassion of Jodi Picoult and the medical realism
of Atul Gawande, Oxygen is a riveting new novel by a
real-life anesthesiologist, an intimate story of
relationships and family that collides with a high-stakes
medical drama. Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her
profession. She has worked, lived and breathed her career
since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle
hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted
her life according to empirical truths, to the science and
art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula
suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must
explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the
resulting malpractice suit. Marie's best friend, colleague
and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest
confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations
and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the
patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career
and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path
she's chosen, the bridges she's burned and the colleagues
and superiors she's mistaken for friends. A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie's
family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching
an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But
Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie and is
busy raising a family. Although Marie has been estranged
from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate
responsibility for their father's care is falling on her. As her carefully structured life begins to collapse, Marie
confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds and
the price of her own choices. Set against the natural
splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of
hospital operating rooms, Oxygen climaxes in a final
twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Oxygen
Carol, thank you for an excellent read. As usual, I rushed through it the first time to get to the ending, but will now go back, reread and slowly enjoy.
pat
(Pat Richardson 6:58pm July 31, 2008)
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