The Doctor's House

An impeccable ear for language, an eye for the smallest shifts in the cultural landscape, and a preternatural understanding of motivation and behavior—Ann Beattie's renowned storytelling abilities are on dazzling display in The Doctor’s House.The novel opens to Nina’s account of her brother’s sexual appetites and betrayals, and leads into her mother’s narrative. As new shadows and light are cast on Nina’s story, painful secrets of life in her father’s house—the doctor’s house—emerge. In the dramatic third movement, the brother gives us his perspective. Through subtle shifts, The Doctor’s House chronicles the fictions three people fabricate in order to survive their lives and showcases the keen observances of family and culture that have made Beattie one of our most admired voices.