Don Coles

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Doctor Bloom's Story

Don Coles

Synopsis:
From an award-winning poet with forty years of writing experience comes one of the most assured and stylish debuts in recent memory -- a masterful novel of keen intelligence, dry humour and emotional depth that places the protagonist at the centre of an exquisite moral dilemma.

Following the death of his wife and only child, cardiologist Nicolaas Bloom sells his house and practice and leaves Europe for Toronto, where he hopes to begin anew. Once there, he develops a wish to join the roster of doctors-turned-writers -- W. Somerset Maugham, A. J. Cronin, “that charlatan” Axel Munthe and others -- all, as he says, “vastly over-rewarded in their second careers.”

When a neighbour invites him to join his university writing class, Dr. Bloom accepts. Soon after, he unexpectedly sees Sophie, a beautiful and enigmatic classmate, being struck by a man in a local park. He later learns that the man is her husband, and that she is regularly assaulted by him. Dr. Bloom and others who know Sophie as intelligent and resourceful are troubled to learn that she will not leave her husband, that she fervently believes there is purpose in this life she is living. Still, they are determined to understand both her passion and passivity, and to protect her, if they can.

Through an accident of circumstance, Sophie’s fate comes to rest in Dr. Bloom’s hands, and therein lies the dilemma: Can one life be taken if it saves the life of another?

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Other editions: Softcover - 2007, Softcover - 2006, Softcover - 2004, Softcover - 2000, 1994, Softcover - 1993, Softcover - 1991, Softcover - 1987, Softcover - 1986, 1982