In the Name of Mercy - Hardcover

Delbanco, Nicholas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446517119 ISBN 13: 9780446517119

Publisher: Grand Central Pub, 1995

Synopsis

After assisting his cancer-stricken wife to commit suicide, Dr. Peter Julius takes charge of a hospice, where several unexplained deaths inspire fearful questions about the doctor's motives. National ad/promo. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas Delbanco has directed the MFA Writing Program at the University of Michigan since 1985.

Reviews

This sad and cynical novel explores the issues surrounding assisted suicide. Peter Julius, a doctor, loses his beloved wife to a particularly virulent form of cancer. As he recovers from his grief, he accepts the position of head of a hospice attached to a private hospital. His patients, colleagues, and friends form part of a small, entwined community. During the course of a not particularly compelling plot, various people die, and anonymous accusations that Peter is a second Dr. Kevorkian are sent to the local newspaper. By the end of the book, there is a bloody confrontation resulting in major changes at the hospital and in the doctor's life. This would, perhaps, be a good text for a discussion group on medical ethics. As a novel, it is so unremittingly bleak and the characters so undifferentiated that reading to the end becomes a struggle. For only the largest fiction collections.?Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Computer Support Svcs., Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

There's an old cliche that warns: Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. In Delbanco's new novel, just about everyone gets what he or she wants, with predictably disastrous results. After helping his wife end a terrible and doomed battle with cancer, Dr. Peter Julius wants to set up a hospice where terminally ill people can slide peacefully into death. His millionaire patron enthusiastically supports Julius in this quest, but soon the death toll in the hospice and the hospital with which it is affiliated climbs precipitously, and the media and police want answers. Julius single-mindedly goes about his work, ignoring the body count, his mourning eased by his growing affection for thanatologist Rebecca Forsythe. Delbanco has crafted a chilling story of desire simultaneously fulfilled and thwarted. He constantly shifts his perspective, telling the tale from several characters' points of view. While sometimes disconcerting, this technique helps the reader understand, and even begin to accept, the motivations that drive the well-drawn and fascinating cast. George Needham

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Pub
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446517119
• ISBN 13: 9780446517119
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310