“A lovely, lethal, disturbing novel” of the dashed hopes of post-apartheid South Africa and the small betrayals that doom a friendship (The Guardian).
An extraordinary parable of the corruption of the flesh and spirit, The Good Doctor has inspired enthusiastic interest around the world and has assured Damon Galgut’s place as a major international talent.
When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not—young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank’s own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities—but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.
“Galgut’s prose, its gentle rhythms and straightforward sentences edging toward revelation, is utterly seductive and suspenseful . . . Galgut is a master of psychological tension. . . . Tragic and brilliant.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
So for a while I had two lives: one that was empty and adrift, in the hospital by day, and another that was illicit and intense, by the side of the road at night. The one had nothing to do with the other. For a long
