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Simon & Schuster
June 2009
On Sale: June 9, 2009
320 pages
ISBN: 1416556117
EAN: 9781416556114
Paperback
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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.
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