The Doctor's Wife

Michael and Annie Knowles have it all. He is a popular and successful obstetrician and she is a free-lance writer and professor at the local college. Two children complete the family picture, Henry - a 12 year old budding scientist, violinist and mediocre soccer player, and Rosie, the adorable 8 year old who loves her dolls and her dog, Molly. The Knowles family is not perfect, however. Michael is often away from home for long hours due to his medical practice and when an old college friend apporaches him with an offer to help at a Women's Clinic on the weekends, he jumps at the opportunity. Now Michael is not only an absentee father/husband but he has become the target of a widespread anti-abortion group that will stop at nothing to show more rid their town of the clinic.

Simon and Lydia Haas have a distorted shell of a marriage. Although Simon is 18 years older than the beautiful Lydia, he has been with her since she was 14 "rescuing" her from a destitute life with a sick, uncaring father. Simon is an artist who made a fortune with his paintings of Lydia and now he teaches at the college as an art professor. Lydia, who seems to be falling even deeper into mental illness, works at a catalog call center but spends most of her time with Reverend Tim, the leader of the right-to-life group. Working at the same college it is inevitable that Simon and Annie meet and when they do the two of them quickly fall into a torrid affair. As the threats against Michael and the clinic increase, and Lydia realizes that her husband and Annie are an item, Michael and Lydia will collide in a terrifying showdown that threatens the very lives of all four people.

Ugh! Have there ever been four such awful characters in one book? I didn't like any of them and really struggled to finish the book. Lydia is the only one I have some sympathy for as she was woefully mistreated as a child and is certainly suffering from a deep-seated mental illness. The other 3 people, especially Simon, were despicable. I'm just glad to have this book off my mountainous TBR; that's the best I can say about it. show less

The Knowles family has it all - at least that is the pervasive opinion of everyone who views the family from the outside. Michael and Annie Knowles have been happily married for a decade and have two beautiful children. They both have successful careers and live in a rambling Federal-style farmhouse in High Meadow, New York. While the couple may seem to be living in their own perfect little world, not everything is quite as perfect as it appears.

Michael Knowles is a rising star in the field of obstetrics and gynecology at a prominent private practice in Albany, New York. He also moonlights at a local women's health clinic as well. His wife, Annie teaches at a Catholic college for women just outside of town. Although she has only been show more teaching for just under a year, her courses are incredibly popular with her students.

Annie may understand her husband's stressful schedule, but she has also become extremely tired of his constant absences. It seems as if Michael is always on call for his patients, but has almost no time left for her or his children. Annie is certainly lonely; and it is beginning to feel like her role as faithful wife, loving mother, and dutiful teacher has worn thin. She needs something to make her feel alive again; something more than just making bagged lunches for her kids, making excuses for her husband, and making up syllabi for her classes.

Enter celebrity painter Simon Haas, whose bad-boy persona captures Annie's attention and interest. To Annie, Simon is everything that Michael is not: creative and passionate, and truly enticing to her soul. He is married to his model and muse, Lydia, a woman who Simon has essentially built his career around. However, Simon and Annie begin a torrid love affair with each other, and Annie discovers that she has so much more to offer someone than just being 'the doctor's wife'.

Her relationship with Simon reawakens Annie's passion - but events soon take a dark turn for the Knowles family. The family begins receiving a series of anonymous threats. The reasons behind this increasing intimidation are not entirely clear...

Michael has seemingly made many enemies of his own: primarily religious extremists who are opposed to his medical practice. Although, are the most violent threats actually meant for Annie? Because she has also made at least one definite enemy in town: someone who has a cellar full of their own dark secrets. Told from the alternating perspectives of four fascinating and extraordinarily complex characters: Michael, Annie, Simon, and Lydia - The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage is a stunning debut novel; a compelling and compulsively readable story that is steeped in psychological suspense, intricate plot twists and intriguing mystery.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book; as this is Ms. Brundage's debut novel, I thought it was actually quite an intriguing plot. In my opinion, the story just proved to me that if a person has the desire to do something, they can justify having to resort to any course of action to achieve that desire. I would give this book a definite A! show less

After finishing the book, I concluded that the main character was indeed the Doctor's Wife, but only barely. The Doctor, the Doctor's Wife's Lover, or the Doctor's Wife's Lover's Lunatic Wife could very easily have taken over as the main character and title.

The ending left much to be desired...but then so does life. I think this was one of the appropriate times where not wrapping up the loose ends serves the reader better.

For me the pro choice v pro life story was secondary as the fascinating unraveling of the characters was the most dramatic aspect of the book.

As far as novels go, this one wasn't half bad -- it was somewhat predictable, though, and the love affair that served as the main crux of the plot was described so tepidly that I didn't at all buy it when the people involved professed their love for each other. Perhaps the author has never had a grand and passionate love affair; readers who have, therefore, may find this a bit flat.

A psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages. Told in flashbacks, this is the story of a doctor and his wife, living in the country outside Albany, NY. He starts doing part time volunteer work for a low cost/free abortion clinic and she begins teaching at a school. These two events will forever change their lives. While she has an affair with a reclusive artist now teaching at the same school, her husband draws the artist's wife's ire for his work as an abortion doctor. These things eventually endanger their lives.

While I enjoyed the book, and found it hard to put down, I wished that some reasonable anti-abortion folk had been portrayed instead of them all being so militantly against abortion.

The Doctor’s Wife. Elizabeth Brundage. 2004. This was a very suspenseful book. The ideal family meets the dysfunctional family. A vaguely dissatisfied and adjunct professor/housewife finds herself drawn into an illicit affair with a local artist/professor when her busy OB/GYN husband decides to work weekends at the local women’s clinic. The artist’s young wife and muse gets involved with a religious group that violently apposes abortion and wages a vicious campaign against the clinic. I enjoyed the descriptions of small college parties and politics, and the descriptions of the artist’s studio and his paintings. The novel is told in flashbacks. The artist’s wife’s madness is vividly described as it is gradually revealed show more throughout the novel. show less

I have to say I liked this book much more than I expected. Dr. Michael Knowles is a doctor who volunteers at an abortion clinic and his wife is a college English professor. Simon Haas is an artist/teacher at the same college and his wife is a mentally unstable Christian fundamentalist. This story is about these two couples and how their lives are completely inter-woven. A really good read