The Doctor's Wife (Moore novel)

Last updated
The Doctor's Wife
TheDoctorsWife.jpg
First Canadian edition
Author Brian Moore
Genrenovel
Publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US)
McClelland & Stewart (Canada)
Jonathan Cape (UK)
Publication date
1976
Preceded by The Great Victorian Collection (1975) 
Followed by The Mangan Inheritance (1979) 

The Doctor's Wife is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published in 1976 (by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom, by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the United States and by McClelland & Stewart in Canada). Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, [1] it tells the story of Sheila Redden, a doctor's wife from Belfast, who takes an American lover eleven years her junior while in Paris. [2] She then separates from both her husband and her new lover.

Reception

People magazine observed that in this novel, as in two of his previous works, Judith Hearne and I Am Mary Dunne , Moore writes from "inside the consciousness of a woman... Moore, who has always loved Paris, splendidly evokes shuttered French hotel rooms and boulevard cafes with precise, echoing details. But in telling explicitly of the ardor and the loyalties which rend the doctor’s wife, he will doubtless divide women readers who crave romance from feminists who don’t." [2]

Lynda Bryans, TV presenter and lecturer, commenting in the Belfast Telegraph , said: "The book is beautifully written... It describes passion, pain, love and grief. Moore writes about the feelings of Mrs Redden (the doctor's wife) so well it's hard to imagine the book is written by a man.” [3]

However, Julian Moynahan, reviewing the book for The New York Times , said: "Despite its great technical skill and air of timeliness", The Doctor's Wife "is really quite old‐fashioned in plot management and quite conventional in its implications... When Moore is writing at his serious best, as in 'The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne' or in 'Catholics,' that small, somber near‐masterpiece, he ranks with the finest novelists of today. 'The Doctor's Wife' is not serious in that sense. it may appear to raise many important questions about passion, family commitments, woman's self‐determination — also about the interconnections of private and public violence and cruelty — yet even in storytelling a parade of appearances must not be confused with the real thing." [4]

According to eNotes, "Moore dramatizes Sheila’s psychological crisis in spiritual terms: She has attained a state of grace during the Villefranche episode, but, according to her Catholic outlook, she must enter purgatory to expiate her venial sins. She chooses an uncertain new life in London, where she can shed her past yet continue her penance for having betrayed both her husband and her lover. Moore, with his sober artistry, has created in Sheila Redden a heroine of a depth, intensity, and subtlety rare in contemporary fiction." [5]

Kirkus Reviews said, however, that in "refusing to go to America with Tom, abandoning her husband and youngster – [Sheila Redden] summarily turns her back on all that was, isolating herself in a smaller void. Moore... specializes in limbos of one kind or another. But somehow the unarticulated decision of this once sensible, now vagrant woman, lacks conviction particularly since all the other externals belong to the glossier knowns of women's fiction--comparable to Mary Dunne's. It's for those other women who stay home to read rather than wander off like the doctor's wife toward a lonelier uncertainty." [6]

Related Research Articles

<i>Cold Comfort Farm</i>

Cold Comfort Farm is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb.

<i>Bluebeard</i> (Vonnegut novel) 1987 novel by Kurt Vonnegut

Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916–1988) is a 1987 novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut. It is told as a first-person narrative and describes the late years of fictional Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian, who first appeared as a minor character in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (1973). Circumstances of the novel bear rough resemblance to the fairy tale of Bluebeard popularized by Charles Perrault. Karabekian mentions this relationship once in the novel.

<i>I Am Mary Dunne</i>

I Am Mary Dunne is a novel, first published in 1968, by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore about one day in the life of a beautiful and well-to-do 31-year-old Canadian woman living in New York City with her third husband, a successful playwright. Triggered by seemingly unimportant occurrences, the protagonist / first person narrator remembers her past in a series of flashbacks, which reveal her insecurities, her bad conscience concerning her first two husbands, and her fear that she is on the brink of insanity.

Brian Moore (novelist) Novelist and screenwriter from Northern Ireland

Brian Moore, was a novelist and screenwriter from Northern Ireland who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland during and after the Second World War, in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The Troubles, and has been described as "one of the few genuine masters of the contemporary novel". He was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1975 and the inaugural Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987, and he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. Moore also wrote screenplays and several of his books were made into films.

Judith Malina

Judith Malina was a German-born American actress, director and writer. With her husband, Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York City and Paris during the 1950s and 60s. The Living Theatre and its founders were the subject of the 1983 documentary Signals Through The Flames.

<i>Thirteen Women</i> 1932 film

Thirteen Women is a 1932 American pre-Code psychological thriller film, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Archainbaud. It stars Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne and Ricardo Cortez. The film is based on the 1930 bestselling novel of the same name by Tiffany Thayer and was adapted for the screen by Bartlett Cormack and Samuel Ornitz.

<i>Hotel du Lac</i> 1984 novel by English writer Anita Brookner

Hotel du Lac is a 1984 Booker Prize-winning novel by English writer Anita Brookner. It centres on Edith Hope, a romance novelist who is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva. There she meets other English visitors, including Mrs Pusey, Mrs Pusey's daughter Jennifer, and an attractive middle-aged man, Mr Neville.

Judith Rossner

Judith Rossner was an American novelist, best known for her acclaimed best sellers Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1975) and August (1983).

Catherine Cusack is an English actress of Irish descent, best known for portraying Nanny Carmel Finnan in long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street in 1992 and 1993.

<i>The Westing Game</i> 1978 childrens mystery novel by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game is a mystery book written by Ellen Raskin and published by Dutton in 1978. It won the Newbery Medal recognizing the year's most distinguished contribution to American children's literature.

<i>Play It as It Lays</i>

Play It As It Lays is a 1970 novel by the American writer Joan Didion. Time magazine included the novel in its "100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005". About the book, Joan Didion said, "I didn’t think it was going to make it [...] And suddenly it did make it, in a minor way. And from that time on I had more confidence." The book was made into a 1972 movie starring Tuesday Weld as Maria and Anthony Perkins as BZ. Didion co-wrote the screenplay with her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

Sheila Holland, née Sheila Ann Mary Coates was best known under the pseudonym Charlotte Lamb as a prolific romantic novelist. She signed her novels with her married or maiden names – Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates – and under the pseudonyms Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. She was married to Richard Holland. They had five children, including a set of twins: - Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland.

<i>The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne</i> 1987 British film

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne is a 1987 drama film made by HandMade Films Ltd. and United British Artists (UBA) starring Maggie Smith and Bob Hoskins. It was directed by Jack Clayton and produced by Richard Johnson and Peter Nelson, with George Harrison and Denis O'Brien as executive producers. The music score was by Georges Delerue and the cinematography by Peter Hannan.

<i>Cold Heaven</i> (novel)

Cold Heaven is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore. It was published in 1983.

<i>The Jewel That Was Ours</i>

The Jewel That Was Ours is a crime novel by Colin Dexter, the ninth novel in Inspector Morse series. This novel was written by Dexter after he wrote a screenplay for an episode titled The Wolvercote Tongue in series 2 of the television programme Inspector Morse.

<i>Judith Hearne</i>

Judith Hearne, was regarded by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore as his first novel. The book was published in 1955 after Moore had left Ireland and was living in Canada. It was rejected by 10 American publishers, then was accepted by a British publisher. Diana Athill's memoir Stet (2000) has information about the publishing of Judith Hearne.

Sherry Thomas American writer

Sherry M. Thomas is an American novelist of young adult fantasy, historical romance, and contemporary romance. She has won multiple awards including the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Historical Romance for Not Quite a Husband in 2010 and His at Night in 2011. Most best-of-romance lists include one of her titles.

Sheila Bishop was an English novelist. She had 27 books published. Her early work alternated between plots set in the Tudor period and the contemporary 1960s, some with flashbacks to the 1930s and 1940s. In later years she concentrated on Regency romance novels, and these formed by far the greater part of her output.

<i>The Dear Departed: Selected Short Stories</i>

The Dear Departed: Selected Short Stories is a collection of short stories by Northern Ireland-born novelist Brian Moore. It was published in the United Kingdom by Turnpike Books in 2020, 21 years after his death.

<i>Moonflower Murders</i> Novel by Anthony Horowitz

Moonflower Murders is a 2020 mystery novel by British author Anthony Horowitz and the second novel in the Susan Ryeland series. The story focuses on the disappearance of a hotel employee and utilizes a story within a story format.

References

  1. "The Doctor's Wife". The Booker Prize. 1976. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
  2. 1 2 "His Own Pursuit of An Older Woman Sparked Brian Moore's Latest Novel". People . 25 October 1976. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
  3. McKittrick, Kerry (1 May 2014). "Belfast celebrates One City One Book – how we found a novel way of looking at our place". Belfast Telegraph . Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  4. Moynahan, Julian (26 September 1976). "The Doctor's Wife". The New York Times . Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  5. "The Doctor's Wife Summary". eNotes . 6 May 2015. Retrieved 13 December 2021.
  6. "The Doctor's Wife". Kirkus Reviews . 1 September 1976. Retrieved 13 December 2021.