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by Elizabeth Brundage
A stunning work of literary suspense by the the acclaimed author of All Things Cease to Appear.
"The memory starts here, in my apron pocket, with the gun."
Lydia Haas is devoted to Jesus, her church, and her husband. Only recently, after it's too late, has she understood how much she has sacrificed to all of them.
Michael Knowles is a rising young doctor, an OB/gyn at a prominent hospital. A man committed to his principles, to rescues with uncertain outcomes; to his wife. The life they've made. He never intended to have to make a choice.
Annie Knowles is the "doctor's wife." The first time she walked into their 1812 Federal-style home in High Meadow, an idyllic town in upstate New York, she thought she'd be happy there forever. But that dream wore thin, and another man—a colleague at the local college where Annie teaches—is insinuating himself slowly, surely, passionately into her life.
Simon Haas' paintings of his wife Lydia made him famous. The story behind those paintings, and behind his marriage, is not one Simon chooses to tell. Until he meets Annie Knowles.
Elizabeth Brundage's debut work of fiction is the story of two couples and the cataclysmic intersection of their lives.
"An examination of w hat happens when we are drawn to the very thing that promises to destroy us." —Publishers Weekly
"Complex, cleverly constructed narrative provides a slow unfolding of the intricate relationship among the characters… This page-turner will appeal to a broad readership." —Booklist
"A fine debut, full of psychological suspense, plot twists and turns, malice disguised as religion, the taint of incest, and cheating spouses." —Library Journal
"The Doctor's Wife is certainly a tense and compelling psychological thriller, but it's more than just a page-turner. In her dark depiction of small-town intolerance, Brundage invites us to question our moral assumptions, social responsibilities, in short, our engagement with the world." —Ruth Ozeki, author of My Year of Meats and All Over Creation
"Elizabeth Brundage has exquisitely captured the tension that resides at the crossroads of self and society. The Doctor's Wife encapsulates not only our uncertain, conflicted times but the maddening, endearing, fascinating contradictions of the American moral construct. This novel is as politically pertinent as it is a page-turner." —Meghan Daum, author of The Quality of Life Report
This information about The Doctor's Wife was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elizabeth Brundage is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned an MFA in fiction and a James Michener award. Her short fiction has been published in the Greensboro Review, Witness Magazine, and New Letters, and she contributed to the anthology Thicker Than Blood: I've Always Meant to Tell You, Letters to Our Mothers. Her most recent novel is All Things Cease to Appear.
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