An Idealistic Doctor

The Good Doctor 

by Damon Galgut

“The funny thing is, I don't care too much. You think you love something so badly, but when it's gone you find out you don't care so much.”   ― Damon Galgut, The Good Doctor







The Good Doctor was an entertaining book with fascinating lessons from the experiences of the titular character. It was a story of hope and misery, love and rejection, political success and defeat in the shifting reality of the post-apartheid South African steppes. The well wrought narrative is fleshed out in sparse prose. 

The newly hired, spotless, idealistic doctor, Laurence Waters, is greeted by Frank Eloff, a burned-out spouse, doctor, and person, on his first day on staff. They reside in two different psychic realms despite sharing a subpar bedroom and doing medical duties in an understaffed clinic that the new political administration ignored. Frank's pessimistic evaluation of Laurence is that "he won't endure." Their story and the denouement held my interest throughout the novel.