Title: THE FAMILY DOCTOR
Author: Debra Oswald
Read: June 2021
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2
Book Description:
Paula is a dedicated suburban GP,
who is devastated by the murder of a friend and her children by their estranged
husband and father. Stacey and the children had been staying with her after
fleeing his control, and Paula is haunted by the thought that she couldn't
protect them when they most needed it. How had she missed the warning signs?
How had she failed to keep them safe?
Not long after, a patient with suspicious injuries brings her anxious young son
into Paula's surgery. The woman admits that her husband hurts her, but she's
terrified to leave for fear of escalating the violence, and defeated by the
consistent failures of the law to help her.
Can Paula go against everything she believes to make sure one woman is saved,
one child spared? She isn't motivated by revenge. She's desperately trying to
prevent a tragedy . . .
My musings:
Before I begin, let me tell you a little story we
were told in an ethics class long ago, which has always stayed in my mind. A
train is racing towards a canyon, where the bridge has collapsed. You have the
power to stop the train by diverting it onto an unused line, but a family are
sitting on the tracks having a picnic and there is no time to warn them. What
do you do? Let the train run its current course and know that hundreds of
passengers are doomed, or save them by diverting the train but kill a family in
the process?
This is the sort of ethical dilemma
Dr Paula Kackzmarek faces in Oswald’s confronting and thought provoking novel
THE FAMILY DOCTOR. Paula has always been a rock to her friends and family, even
through times of personal tragedy when she lost her young husband to cancer.
When her long-time friend Stacey and her two kids had to flee their family home
to escape Stacey’s violent husband, Paula didn’t hesitate to take them in. But
then the unthinkable happened, and Paula came home from work to find her friend
and her two children had been shot by her estranged husband, in a terrible
murder-suicide. So when Paula encounters a woman and her child in her clinic,
bearing the scars of domestic violence, she is determined to help her. With a
system often powerless to stop violence against women and legal processes that
see many predators freed due to technicalities, Paula feels helpless. Can she
stand back and risk another woman being killed by her violent husband, or
should she take matters into her own hands?
When I picked up THE FAMILY DOCTOR,
I had no idea how deeply this novel would draw me in, and keep me captivated in
a state of permanent moral conflict. Initially I stood firmly on my own moral
highground, but as the story unfolded, layer after layer, I realised what a
complex and ambivalent story this had become. Oswald draws her characters so
well that I was quickly emotionally invested and could no longer look away or
pretend that this was not troubling me on many levels. Even now, I feel like I
need to discuss this book with someone! According to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, 1 in 6 women have experienced violence from a current or previous
partner. These terrible numbers don’t lie!
Throughout the book, I felt the
author’s frustration with a legal system that often sets predators free, only
to continue the cycle of violence. By exploring the topic through a variety of
characters – a doctor, a journalist covering a murder trial where a man has
been accused of killing his girlfriend, a police detective plus several victims
of domestic violence – Oswald explores all the ethical and moral nooks and
crannies associated with this issue.
Summary:
THE FAMILY DOCTOR is a well researched, well
written novel that really got under my skin! I was in a constant state of
anxiety trying to sort out my own thoughts about Paula’s situation, and
confronting my own moral highground and preconceived ideas about many issues
surrounding the topic of domestic violence in our society today. Being set in
Australia made it even more relevant, as it described processes I am familiar
with through my work and everyday life. This was a profound if troubling piece
of writing, which will stay in my mind for a long time to come. I can’t wait to
read more from this author in future!
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