Spirit of the Place (9781101617021)

PRAISE FOR

The Spirit of the Place

THE USA BOOK NEWS BEST BOOKS NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD 2008

THE IPPY BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD 2009

“[Shem's] . . . real subject is the landscape of the human heart with its dangers and delights, its vertiginous cliffs and mossy woods, its comforts and contradictions . . . Vivid, enchanting . . . a wonderful book about the surprises of human connection and the infinite power of love.”

—Susan Cheever, author of
American Bloomsbury

“A rare ode to home, not only to finding a place in the world but to connecting with someone who feels like home. It's a love song to history, global and national and regional and local and personal. It's an essay on the power and fallibility of medicine, told by a doctor . . . It's the story of a man and his mother, the give-and-take of that relationship, the slow revelations that keep flowing between the two even with distance or time or death keeping them apart. What makes the book so rare is its fragile beauty. Shem's language is simple and elegant even as he delves into the essences of his characters. And he doesn't shy away from their complexity—rather, he embraces it, allowing us to see them as whole, imperfect, impatient, reckless, uncertain, vulnerable, delirious, selfish, loving.”

—
The Berkshire Eagle

“Funny and wrenching . . . It's hard to put down.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A deeply moving and profoundly intelligent exploration of the complexities and rewards of family, profession, and place . . . This book continues to resonate in the mind and heart long after it is read.”

—Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of
How Doctors Think

“Samuel Shem, raucous and insightful physician of the soul, captures a town, a man, a time of life with all the verve and nerve that marked
The House of God
. Hooray!”

—Bill McKibben, author of
The Bill McKibben Reader

“I was riveted . . .
The Spirit of the Place
is special—a grand, wonderfully insightful story . . . filled with larger than life characters and told with outrageous Shem-humor and authentic humanity.”

—Michael Palmer,
New York Times
bestselling author of
The First Patient

“Samuel Shem's
The Spirit of the Place
is the perfect bookend to his seminal work,
The House of God
.”

—
Diversion Magazine

PRAISE FOR

The House of God

NAMED BY THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL THE LANCET AS ONE OF THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT AMERICAN MEDICAL NOVELS OF THE 20TH CENTURY, THE OTHER BEING SINCLAIR LEWIS'S ARROWSMITH

“A raunchy, troubling and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. It introduced characters like ‘Fat Man'—the all-knowing but crude senior resident—and medical slang like GOMER, for Get Out of My Emergency Room. Written by a psychiatrist, Stephen Bergman, under the pseudonym Samuel Shem, the novel is based on his grueling, often dehumanizing experiences as an intern at Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Hospital. When the novel first appeared, many doctors were hesitant to admit they had heard of it, let alone were willing to discuss it. Several prominent physicians denigrated it as scandalous . . . And based on such scabrous reviews, hundreds of thousands of medical students eagerly read it. What makes
The House of God
singularly compelling is its brutally honest portrayal of the absurd tragedies and occasional triumphs of hospital life.”

—
The New York Times

“Bawdy, blistering . . . This is
Catch-22
with stethoscopes.”

—Cosmopolitan

“Does for the practice of medicine what
Catch-22
and
M*A*S*H
did for the practice of warfare.”

—
The Newark Star-Ledger

“A wildly funny, sad, laugh-out-loud, frightening, outrageous, thought-provoking, moving book . . . a story of modern medicine rarely, if ever, told.”

—
Houston Chronicle

“[
The House of God
]—about the tortured life of a medical intern—cast an early spotlight on the grueling conditions that come with medical training, and has become historically important . . . in the history of medical writing. Asking a doctor about
The House of God
is often an invitation for them to tell horror stories of their sleepless hazing as interns.”

—The Boston Globe

“Wonderfully wild, ribald, erotic, bitter, compassionate . . . in the same spirit as
Catch-22
.”

—
The Seattle Times

“Mordantly funny, brilliantly ironic . . . A writer of outstanding substance and style.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Belly-laugh humor . . . Will be one of the most talked-about books of the year.”

—
Memphis Press-Scimitar

Works by Samuel Shem

Novels

THE HOUSE OF GOD

MOUNT MISERY

FINE

THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE

Plays

BILL W. AND DR. BOB (WITH JANET SURREY)

ROOM FOR ONE WOMAN

NAPOLEON'S DINNER

Nonfiction (with Janet Surrey)

WE HAVE TO TALK: HEALING DIALOGUES

BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN

The
SPIRIT
of the
PLACE

Samuel Shem

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2008 by Stephen J. Bergman.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY
^®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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PUBLISHING HISTORY

Kent State University Press hardcover edition / June 2008

Berkley trade paperback edition / December 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shem, Samuel.

The spirit of the place / Samuel Shem. — Berkley trade paperback ed. p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-61702-1

1. Physicians—Fiction. 2. Homecoming—Fiction. 3. New York (State)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.H39374S66 2012

813'.54—dc23

2012030061

For three generations:
Rose Fuchs Bergman
Janet Lynn Surrey
Katie Chun Surrey-Bergman

For some years
I have been afflicted
With the belief that
Flight is possible to man.

—
Wilbur Wright, Letter
,
May
13, 1900

Part One

Beware of foreign entanglements . . .

—
George Washington (apocryphal)