Author: Damon Galgut
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 216
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0143031813
Description
When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not-young, optimistic and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the dilapidated hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust.
The town beyond the hospital is also coping with new arrivals, and the return of old faces. The Brigadier-a self-styled dictator from apartheid days-is rumored still to be alive. And down at Mama's place, a group of soldiers have moved in with their malign commandant, a man Frank has met before and is keen to avoid.
Laurence wants to help, but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, hid ill-starred idealism cannot last.
REVIEWS
One of the best and weirdest novels I have read in a long while. From the first page the reader is gripped. At a time when much so called literary fiction has settled into fulfilling comfortable expectations, The Good Doctor unsettles and confounds. There are traces of J M Coetzee and Graham Greene but Damon Galgut is a true original.
-Geoff Dyer
A truly remarkable novel, steeped in contemporary history, yet at the same time transcending it. I was enthralled by its intensity and the immediacy of every small twist and turn of the story.
-Andre Brink