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Summary
Summary
Dr. Maggie Claymore is a leading neonatologist at a bustling Boston hospital. She works with the smallest and sickest patients: premature babies so ill that other doctors might give up on them. Maggie is fiercely devoted, despite the ethical conundrums that arise daily on the highest-tech edge of medicine -- and in spite of colleagues who feel she often risks too much. Nearly forty, happily married but childless by default, and supremely confident, Maggie knows her exact place in the world.She's the kind of woman who always makes a strong impression, for better or for worse.
Maggie's orderly life begins to unravel when she gets an anonymous note calling her ethics and reputation into question. At first she is able to ignore the increasingly virulent letters, but when her accuser goes public -- posting hate-filled warning posters around the hospital implicating her in a child's death -- Maggie finds herself mired in a personal and professional hell. With everything that she has and everything that she is thrown into doubt, Maggie must fight for herself even asshe fights to keep her tiny patients breathing.
The Mystery of Breathing is not only an absorbing page-turner, but also a poignant examination of a woman struggling to maintain her hard-fought identity. Maggie's metamorphosis from fearful to indignant to self-doubting is complex and viscerally powerful. As gossip and innuendo overwhelm her workplace, Maggie's paranoia grows, and all the while lives hang in the balance.
Author Notes
Perri Klass is a practicing pediatrician, an acclaimed author of fiction & nonfiction, & a prizewinning journalist. She has won five O. Henry Awards for her short stories, including three of the stories in "Love & Modern Medicine". Her fiction includes two novels, "Recombinations & Other Women's Children", & a collection of short stories, "I Am Having an Adventure". She has also written two collections of essays about medicine, "A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student" & "Baby Doctor: A Pediatrician's Training". Her columns & articles have appeared in the "New York Times Magazine", the "Washington Post", the "Boston Globe", "Discover", & "Parenting". She recently won a James Beard Foundation Award for an article in "Gourmet", "The Lunch Box as Battlefield."
Both Klass's fiction & her journalism have dealt with issues of medicine & society. In her medical career she practices pediatrics at Dorchester House, a neighborhood health center in Boston, & is medical director of the national literacy program Reach Out & Read, dedicated to making books & literacy promotion part of pediatric primary care.
Klass lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Larry Wolff, a professor of history at Boston College, & their children.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"The very first time she saw a baby born, Maggie knew: This was her moment." Dr. Maggie Claymore, a 39-year-old neonatologist at a hospital in Boston, is not just good at her job, she is her job. Real-life pediatrician Klass (Other Women's Children; A Not Entirely Benign Procedure) has come up with an absorbing medical thriller that takes as its focus the aura of authority and remove that comes with the M.D. Claymore is so intent on the myriad exacting tasks and the drama and high-stakes decisions involved in saving the very youngest premature lives that she doesn't pick up her head to notice the impact that her aggressive medicine is having on her fellow physicians. It comes as an appalling surprise to her when she receives an anonymous letter attacking her competence and her character. "Maybe you think you stupid, evil, self-satisfied woman that everyone is fooled by you but it is not true!!!" Soon, the letters to Claymore become letters to nursing supervisors accusing Claymore of unhooking a young patient from her monitors and allowing her to die out of a belief that "children with birth defects and other problems are better off dead." Finally, after the wild accusations and personal attacks start showing up on signs posted around the hospital, Claymore's increasingly public nightmare comes to include a hospital lawyer; a methodical, skeptical private investigator; and Claymore's mentor. Klass creates real suspense and makes Claymore's self-questioning not only plausible but absorbing. Although the tension abates a bit toward the end, this is an entertaining and intelligent twist on a psychological thriller that should appeal to men as well as women. (Feb. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Woman doctor's life spins out of control after receiving a poison pen letter: a third novel from pediatrician, memoirist, and storywriter Klass (Love and Modern Medicine, 2001, etc.). Maggie is a neonatal specialist in a revered Boston hospital. Brought up by a single mother, Maggie has escaped the poverty and Christian fundamentalism of her childhood by maintaining an almost obsessive control over herself and the details of her life. Her work is intense and rewarding, and she's up for promotion to an even more important position. She's married to the saintly, ever-patient Dan, who works without personal ambition at a clinic for the indigent. Although disappointed that their attempts to conceive have failed, Dan and Maggie dote on each other in the way only childless couples can. Klass works a little too hard to let us know what a perfect, controlled life Maggie leads; there's a tendency to repeat information from one chapter to the next about Maggie and Dan's habits. One day, Maggie receives an anonymous hate letter in her immaculate office at the hospital, then her office is desecrated in a particularly nasty way. Soon, letters implying that she's been involved in a child's death, falsifying credentials, and abusing drugs appear on hospital walls where her patients' parents can read them. As Maggie's life starts to unravel, Klass does a powerful job of delineating the helplessness of someone faced with an anonymous threat. She does a weaker job with the personality of the doctor-villain whose identity she gives us early on. His motivations seem pat and his creepiness contrived, but Klass adds a clever twist when his medical instincts overtake his need for sick revenge. The hospital is predictably cowardly in the face of possible scandal, although the diligent outside investigator is the stuff mystery series are made of. The happy ending seems both tacked on and tacky. Not perfect in its particulars but engrossing and tensely haunting nonetheless. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Physician Klass's (Other Women's Children) latest novel starts out with an intriguing premise. Dr. Maggie Claymore, a respected neonatologist at a large Boston hospital, is suddenly the victim of slander from an anonymous source maligning her medical abilities and motives. This individual is sending damning letters to her colleagues and posting signs all over the hospital. Maggie continues to provide patient care under these very stressful conditions as the hospital hires an investigator to find out who is behind the outrageous misinformation. The story quickly bogs down as the omniscient narrator tells it from the perspective of virtually every major character in the story. Tossed in is the saga of Maggie's best friend and tenant, Sarah, which is only vaguely connected to the rest of the narrative. The reader eventually learns the identity of the person intent on ruining Maggie's reputation, but the good doctor herself is never so fortunate. The conclusion only very loosely ties up the ends in what could have been a very suspenseful story, leaving the reader with no real understanding of the motives of anyone involved. Not recommended for libraries with limited budgets for fiction.-Karen Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.