The Education of Mrs. Bemis: A Novel - Softcover

Sedgwick, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060512598 ISBN 13: 9780060512590

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2003

Synopsis

A dead body floating by a pier. An elderly woman curled up on a bed in a department store. A psychiatrist searching for her own identity. These are the pieces of the puzzle that, in John Sedgwick's masterful novel of psychological suspense, begin to come into focus when Madeline Bemis is referred to the treatment of Dr. Alice Matthews at Montrose Psychiatric Hospital.

Mrs. Bemis's treatment gradually peels back the layers of a disturbing past whose shameful secrets and hidden sorrows stem from the war years of the 1940s—and reveals an unexpected link to the floating corpse. Mrs. Bemis's awakening sparks an intimacy between the two women that goes beyond an ordinary doctor/patient relationship—but also makes it clear that Mrs. Bemis's recovery, and perhaps even her safety, depends on quickly coming to terms with her secret history.

About this title

About the Author:

John Sedgwick is the author of the novels The Dark House and The Education of Mrs. Bemis, and contributes regularly to Newsweek, GQ, and The Atlantic, among other publications. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

From Publishers Weekly:

The personal values of what could be called Upper Boston are as important as the two main characters Mrs. Bemis and Alice Matthews, the young psychiatrist who tries to help her in journalist and author Sedgwick's engaging and warm if finally confounding novel. Since Madeline Bemis is 76 when Dr. Matthews finds her curled up almost catatonic on a bed in Filene's department store, it's obvious that treating her will involve considerable backtracking. Equally obvious is that these two women one from a working-class family in a rust-belt town, the other imperious and rigid after a lifetime in the Brahmin precincts will find commonalities in the process. When she was 18, Madeline was engaged to a bomber copilot stationed in England during WWII. Waiting at home for her life to begin, she had an affair with an Irish gardener who left her pregnant. She was sent away to have the baby and give him up for adoption. When her fiance returned, permanently disabled, they settled into a remote marriage. Sedgwick (The Dark House) creates a striking portrait of Mrs. Bemis's time and place, as well as of likable but insecure Dr. Matthews, who is battling her own professional and emotional problems. The plotting is less assured, with a central mystery that's resolved in a melodramatic fashion, but the narrative succeeds as an appealing story of a shared journey.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060512598
• ISBN 13: 9780060512590
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400