See what they did there?
The beginning of Chapter Thirteen, the final chapter of Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion collaborative and compulsively readable new book, THE GENERAL HOSPITAL, starts with an allusion to an iconic movie and in a literary sleight of hand navigates narrative mentalism.
These two medicos have a serious talent in turning human observation into literary gold.
Taking a leaf from one of their characters, the authors know stereotypes don’t come from nothing, and if you can use that to to be sensitive and alert in your storytelling all to the better. Stereotypes reflect a real problem. But there’s a downside to generalisations and the authors are aware of that too. In their careful rendering, stereotypes and generalisations don’t manifest into profiling but are employed positively not derogatorily, punitively, or offensively.
The title springs forth an allusion to a soap opera and as a series of case histories it resembles episodic television. But if this novel is considered soap, give me surfeit of its suds. This is a rich lather of literary foam, a frothy fiction full of drama, both comedy and tragedy.
The principal player in THE GENERAL HOSPITAL is Doctor Hannah Wright, a trainee psychiatrist tasked with tackling a number of patients with mental health issues in the surgical and obstetrics wards.
Bi polar and dialyses, immolation and obligation, cultural and generational clashes, and gilt edged guilt supply a chain of characters and situations that Hannah and her cohort must deal with on a day to day basis. And then there is the internecine rivalries between interns and tribal tribulations between disciplines, the twain between physical and mental health missing the mark.
Culturally sensitive but not weighed down by the yoke of woke, this is the third instalment of the Menzies Mental Health series but can be read as a stand alone. However, once admitted to THE GENERAL HOSPITAL you’ll definitely want to find out what happened before.
THE GENERAL HOSPITAL by Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion is published by Hachette.
