Summary:

Dr. Sunit "Sonny" Seth is a gifted but troubled (emotionally and spiritually) third year resident who works at a New York hospital that treats and employs many immigrants from India. The sleep-walking Sonny is assigned to care for a prominent Indian politician known as the Transplanted Man, a patient who has already received seven organ transplants and is currently in renal failure.

Sonny mysteriously rescues the Transplanted Man from the brink of death following a kidney transplant but later learns his patient died from a cardiac arrest. Although Sonny is no stranger to personal loss and longing, the death of this special patient serves as a catalyst. He breaks up with his girlfriend, quits his residency, and dreams of relocating to Trinidad. Meanwhile, nearly everyone else Sonny knows seems to be struggling with their role and place in the world as well.

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A stray dog bites the left ankle of 12-year-old Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles. She and her peculiar parents live in a country near the Caribbean Sea during colonial times. Her father belongs to the class of decaying nobility. He is a weak man with poor judgment. Her scheming mother is a nymphomaniac who abuses cacao tablets and fermented honey. Sierva Maria is more or less raised by the family's slaves whose culture she assimilates. The youngster has luxuriant copper-colored hair and a penchant for lying--"she wouldn't tell the truth even by mistake" according to her mother. (p. 16)

Before long, the dog dies of rabies. When Sierva Maria begins exhibiting bizarre behavior, no one is quite sure of the cause even though everyone seems to have his or her own theory. Is the girl displaying signs of rabies? Is she possessed by a demon? The physician Abrenuncio doubts either diagnosis. The powerful Bishop believes the girl may require an exorcism. Perhaps Sierva Maria is simply eccentric or maybe even crazy. Ninety-three days after being bitten by the dog, she is locked in a cell in the Convent of Santa Clara.

The Bishop appoints his protégé, 36-year-old Father Cayetano Delaura, to investigate the matter. The priest is immediately infatuated with the girl. When the Bishop learns of Cayetano Delaura's love for Sierva Maria and his unacceptable actions, the priest is disciplined and then relegated to caring for lepers at the hospital. The Bishop next takes matters into his own hands by performing the rite of exorcism on Sierva Maria. After five sessions, she is found in bed "dead of love." (p. 147)

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Summary:

Billy Sanchez and Nena Daconte, children of two wealthy Colombian families, fly to Europe to celebrate their honeymoon. Although married only three days, Nena is already two months pregnant. After she scrapes her ring finger on a rose thorn, the nearly imperceptible cut starts bleeding profusely. Nena is admitted to the intensive care unit of a Paris hospital. Visitation is permitted only one day a week so Billy must wait six days before he can see his wife again. He spends most of his time alone in a nearby hotel.

Billy tries to visit Nena sooner but is thrown out of the hospital by a security guard. Billy’s attempt to enlist the aid of the foreign embassy is equally unsuccessful. When Tuesday’s visiting hours finally arrive, Billy cannot locate his wife. He spots the physician who first evaluated Nena. The doctor regretfully announces that Nena bled to death sixty hours after hospital admission. No one could find Billy to apprise him of the situation so Nena’s parents have already arranged the funeral and transported the body home for burial. Billy exits the hospital with thoughts of violence and revenge for his calamity.

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Summary:

The world as everyone knew it ended years earlier when "the clocks stopped at 1:17" [p 45] and power was lost. Not many people are still alive. The landscape is charred and hostile with "cauterized terrain" [p 12], "ashen scabland" [p 13], and "the mummied dead everywhere" [p 20]. A father and his young son travel south towards the coast. The boy's mother has committed suicide. Papa and the child wear masks and tote knapsacks. The father pushes a shopping cart filled with potentially useful items that he has collected during the journey. The man keeps his pistol close. It only contains two bullets - one reserved for him and one for the boy.

The father and son follow a road towards the ocean, but they scurry and hide like two animals. Papa's biggest worries are marauders, food, and shoes. The world is cold. Rape and cannibalism are common occurrences. Although their goal is to remain alive and reach the coast, father and son wonder if the destination is any more hospitable than the rest of the dying world. Often hungry and freezing, both of them become sick. The boy contracts a febrile illness. The man frequently coughs blood and is wounded in the leg by an arrow.

Father and child ultimately reach the ocean, but it too is cold and dead. Not long after arriving at the coast, Papa dies. A stranger finds the grieving boy and invites the child to join his family - wife, son, and daughter. He assures the boy that he is a good man. He tells the child that his family does not eat other people. He advises the boy to hold onto his father's pistol.

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Summary:

The 25-year-old narrator returns to his hometown after a five-year absence. He accompanies his 14-year-old cousin to the hospital. The cousin's right ear is damaged, and his hearing is ruined. Although previous treatments have been unsuccessful, a new ear specialist is going to perform a procedure on the boy's ear.

The narrator recalls another trip he took to a hospital eight years earlier. At that time, he and a high school friend visited a girl who was having an operation on her rib. The girl had composed a poem based on a dream she had. She told the story to her two visitors and illustrated it by drawing a picture on a napkin. Her tale involved miniscule flies that crept into a woman's ear causing her to fall asleep. While she slept, the insects eventually devoured her flesh. A man attempted to awake (and save) her, but it was too late. The narrator remembers that his high school friend died not long afterwards.

The cousin's appointment with the ear doctor ends with a sack of medication and little likelihood that the day's treatment will restore his hearing. The narrator and his cousin eat in the hospital cafeteria. The boy asks the narrator to gaze inside his ears, and the narrator marvels at the structure and mystery of the human ear. He decides his cousin's ear appears normal. Soon, the narrator's mind once again drifts back to a summer eight years ago and memories of his lost friend.

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A foreign correspondent accustomed to global calamities now finds himself entangled in a personal disaster. Tom is a middle-aged man with a weakness for cigarettes and women but not much interest in his wife, Barbara, and their young daughter. Tom develops a nagging cough. Night sweats, bloody sputum, and weight loss soon follow. He visits multiple physicians. A chest X-ray demonstrates a suspicious "shadow." Even before further testing is performed, a distinguished pulmonary specialist tells Tom that the diagnosis is lung cancer.

Tom and his wife search the Internet and worry even more when they learn about the harsh side effects of treatment and the dismal prognosis of the disease. Although he has smoked cigarettes since he was a teenager, Tom suddenly has little trouble quitting. He develops a greater appreciation of his wife and fondness for his daughter. If only he could have another chance at life, he would mend his ways and become a new man. The results of Tom's additional tests reveal a different diagnosis - tuberculosis. Tom and Barbara are ecstatic that he can be cured with a combination of five different medications. With the threat of cancer eliminated, Tom resumes all his old habits: smoking cigarettes, ignoring his wife, and flirting with women.

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Summary:

Daniel has plenty of problems. He is already divorced. He loses his job. He is stalked by a mysterious group of well-dressed men (maybe federal agents) for an unknown reason. They follow him around in a blue Toyota SUV and show up at his ex-wife's house asking questions. On his way to an interview for an assistant manager's job at Dunkin' Donuts, Daniel drives through a medical district containing six hospitals. His mother died in one of these buildings. When he spots the blue SUV trailing him, he takes evasive action. After parking his car in a hospital lot, he wanders into the hallway outside the intensive care unit.

Eventually he settles into the ICU waiting room where he meets many family members of critically ill patients. Michael, a former Russian KGB agent whose elderly mother is a patient in the ICU, befriends him. Daniel remains in the medical complex for one month visiting the intensive care area of a different hospital each day. He sits with the relatives of ICU patients, and even though they are strangers, he listens to their tales of woe and empathizes with them.

Daniel becomes addicted to the humanity of the waiting room. Even when his car is finally towed from the parking lot, the threatening men in suits still wait for him outside the hospital. Daniel never learns the nature of his offense. Although he has nowhere to safely go, Daniel finds himself strangely comforted and at home in the ICU waiting room.

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Summary:

Dr. Panteleon has practiced medicine for more than forty years in a town where his patients rarely became ill. One day, a girl arrives at his office requesting a gynecological examination. The doctor performs a silent and mechanical pelvic exam. The girl’s stepfather wants the physician to certify that the young woman is a virgin and able to have children. The stepfather has given her an ultimatum. She must marry either the town butcher or Dr. Panteleon. She hates the butcher and the doctor will not marry her.

The girl asks for help. The stepfather suffers from chronic constipation and hemorrhoids. Although critical of Dr. Panteleon’s treatment of his problem, the stepfather nevertheless requests additional medicated suppositories. Before embarking on a house call to meet with the lazy man and discuss the young woman’s plight, Dr. Panteleon prepares six special suppositories laced with a poison that will make constipation the least of the stepfather’s problems.

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Summary:

Ashdown, a beautiful but bleak manor on the English coast, is the main setting of this story. Initially, a group of university students including Sarah Tudor, Gregory Dudden, Robert, and Terry reside at Ashdown. Some of these same students return there years later as either patients or staff when the building is converted into the Dudden Clinic where individuals with all sorts of sleep disorders are treated.

Sarah is a disturbed young woman suffering from narcolepsy. She is sometimes unable to differentiate her dreams from the experiences of real life. Robert is infatuated with her and will do literally anything to please her. Gregory is Sarah’s first lover, later a psychiatrist in charge of the sleep clinic, and finally a man gone mad who decides to self-experiment. Dr. Cleo Madison is a sleep psychologist whose true identity is a surprise. In this novel, reality appears more surrealistic than most dreams.

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Summary:

When 47-year-old Henry Newman experiences testicular pain, he gets little pity from his wife, Arlene. His personal physician, Dr. Vikrami (a woman who has only reluctantly examined Henry’s "private parts" in the past) schedules him for an ultrasound study of the testicles rather than examining him first. A young nurse performs the test and a female radiologist apprises Henry of the findings-- epididymitis.

A urologist confirms the diagnosis, but Henry is more interested in learning that the doctor has a twin brother who is also a urologist. Henry goes to see his 80-year-old mother who resides in a convalescent home. She pesters him about checking on the condition of his brother’s grave. His brother, Aubrey, died as an infant, and Henry was born two years later.

Henry visits the cemetery and finds the small tombstone marking Aubrey’s grave covered by weeds and bird excrement. He tidies it up. When Henry returns to the convalescent home, his mother’s bed is empty. He fears she has died but then spots her exiting a bathroom. Henry tells her that he has finally spruced up Aubrey’s grave, but she seems oblivious to his announcement and just babbles on.

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