Book info

• Title The Good Doctor
• Author Damon Galgut
• Year 2003
• Genre Contemporary

When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not-young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank's own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities-but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.

Thoughts

I quite enjoyed this, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why. The Good Doctor tells the story of a rundown, almost empty African hospital, staffed by a disparate bunch of doctors and nurses. Our protagonist tells of the arrival of a young, new doctor who wants to improve the situation, and we run through their various adventures and reflect on life up to that point.

The writing is evocative and moving, it draws you in but also keeps you at arms length. You feel each emotion but there’s a detachment to the whole thing, a lost feeling that I think is deliberate - it echoes the abandoned nature of the village and the hospital setting.

The ending is sort of ambiguous, not exactly satisfactory, but you never really expect it to be. I enjoyed the process of reading it, but the story has left me a bit bewildered, wondering whether there was a point and if I missed it, or if it was all about the journey.

Rating: 3 / 5