Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN's picks for book lovers include a new memoir by a medical resident that might make you think twice.
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy; Crown, 323 pp.; non-fiction
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly is the second memoir by Matt McCarthy, who shared his experiences as a minor-league baseball player in 2009's Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound With a Minor League Misfit. It was around that time he started interning at New York's Columbia University Medical Center, the first year of which serves as the premise for his new book.
Two weeks out of Harvard Medical School, and fueled by a cocktail of adrenaline and coffee, McCarthy recounts what it's like to be an idealistic novice who's thrown into the deep end of a bustling hospital. Working primarily in the cardiac care unit, but dipping his toes into other areas, his days are as varied as sorting through a patient's fecal matter looking for smuggled drugs, or poking and prodding a dying woman until he can find a vein for her IV. (Thankfully, she lives.)
But as should be expected with any trial by fire, not every situation has a rosy outcome. Worn down by long hours and his failure to connect with patients on a personal level, McCarthy makes his share of rookie mistakes — some, with potentially fatal consequences for the already ill; and one that could impact his own health, in the book's most surprising turn.
Paste BN says *** out of four. "If you need a light read with a dark dose of humor, we'd like to prescribe The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly."
All Involved by Ryan Gattis; Ecco, 372 pp.; fiction
Novel set during the 1992 riots that occurred in Los Angeles after a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles policemen charged with using excessive force against an unarmed black man named Rodney King.
Paste BN says *** ½. "Poignant, fierce and often graphically brutal."
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison; Knopf, 178 pp.; fiction
Story of Lula Ann Bridewell, a cosmetics executive who feels shame because her light-skinned mother disparaged her for being dark-skinned, "midnight black."
Paste BN says ***1/2. "Superb… it's to this Nobel laureate's credit that so late in life she's still looking outward."
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer; Doubleday; 384 pp.; non-fiction
The best-selling author of Into Thin Air takes a clear-eyed look at a rash of sexual assaults involving University of Montana students between 2010 and 2012.
Paste BN says ***1/2. "Meticulously reported, fascinating and deeply disturbing."
The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg; Random House; fiction, 345 pp.
Historical novel about George Sand is told in the French novelist's voice: melancholy, intimate, self-aware and heartbreaking.
Paste BN says ****. "Exquisitely captivating."
Contributing reviewers: Patrick Ryan, Gene Seymour, Charles Finch, Claudia Puig, Patty Rhule