The Doctor's Wife (Moore novel)
The Doctor's Wife is a novel by Northern Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, published (by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom) in 1976. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize,[1] it tells the story of Sheila Redden, a doctor's wife from Belfast, who takes an American lover eleven years her junior while in Paris.[2] She then separates from both her husband and her new lover.
 First Canadian edition | |
| Author | Brian Moore |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US) McClelland & Stewart (Canada) Jonathan Cape (UK) |
Publication date | 1976 |
Reception
People magazine observed that in this novel, as in two of his previous works, Judith Hearne and I Am Mary Dunne, Moore writes from "inside the consciousness of a woman... Moore, who has always loved Paris, splendidly evokes shuttered French hotel rooms and boulevard cafes with precise, echoing details. But in telling explicitly of the ardor and the loyalties which rend the doctor’s wife, he will doubtless divide women readers who crave romance from feminists who don’t."[2]
Lynda Bryans, TV presenter and lecturer, commenting in the Belfast Telegraph, said: "The book is beautifully written... It describes passion, pain, love and grief. Moore writes about the feelings of Mrs Redden (the doctor's wife) so well it's hard to imagine the book is written by a man.”[3]
References
- "Brian Moore". The Man Booker Prizes. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
- "His Own Pursuit of An Older Woman Sparked Brian Moore's Latest Novel". People. 25 October 1976. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
- McKittrick, Kerry (1 May 2014). "Belfast celebrates One City One Book – how we found a novel way of looking at our place". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 9 August 2020.