Remedies

I just finished reading the book, "Remedies". It's 4. a.m. and my skin resembles a prune from being in the bathtub so long but I was compelled to finish it before I could get out. I have four children, one of whom is only three, so my reading is limited to the bathtub or at swim lessons/soccer lessons, etc., but I managed to finish it in three days. Anyway, I have one small word to describe this book: Wow. I had to find out what would happen to these characters that I came to care about so much. I started out very irritated with Simon and his one track mind and eccentric behaviors (I wanted to strangle him over the wine making/grape fiasco) that led to the destruction of his family, while feeling revulsion towards Emily for her affair while at the same time being understanding of her reasons, to deep sadness for Jamie who was so obviously begging for attention. Simon's cold parents reminded me so much of elderly parents that I've come across too, they were so real and so responsible for many things that Simon was feeling. At the end of the book when he was in church and feeling all of those previously untapped emotions, it was like I could see right into the character of his soul and I wanted him to be able to heal as badly as if he was a friend of mine. I alternated between contempt for how he handled his pain patients, as I'm an R.N. with experience in pain management and all of the intricacies involved in the care of these patients, to deep admiration for what could be described as sheer naivete or just plain caring at any cost for those people. I could empathize with the feeling of the world coming crashing down around him, the deep despair that he felt and feeling like he had no one to turn to, but finding the strength to persevere. I think we've all been there. I could also empathize with long suffering emotions stemming from tragic events that were repressed and buried under work and life, only to resurface years later and sucker punch you right in the gut, forcing you to deal with them. This book made me laugh, worry to the point of nail biting, get angry and cry, it provoked a wide range of emotions. A piece of advice, don't get this book from the library because this book is one you'll want to keep on your shelf forever. Patricia Las Vegas, NV

Emily and Simon Bear's mistakes come from their need to do "whatever will help" ease a pain they have kept buried for too long. This is a powerful book about how the damage of the past can appear in ways you never imagined-- but also, ultimately, about the possibility of healing and atonement. I look forward to this author's next book.

This is an exquisitely written, urbane novel that has teeth to it--cutting incisors that bite and sting and leave their marks right down to the marrow and bone (and into your heart). With sinewy, spiked prose and metaphors that melt in your mouth, Remedies seizes you from the first sentence and moves tautly with each ensuing page. There is not one bland, banal, or stale phrase in this book. It's clean and scrubbed, tangy and citric; moreover, it migrates under your skin. The pages flutter and fly as you descend into depths as sharp and barbed as a large bore needle. Simon Bear, who is a (internist) doctor, and his wife, Emily, a (PR) spin-doctor, are successful at their careers. However, their marriage is bleeding out--they suffered a tremendous blow sixteen years ago and still have old, gnawing wounds that prevent the healing process from taking root. Their thirteen year-old-daughter, Jamie, has sullenly retreated from their love and their lives and is also maimed by their psychic torment. Simon's coping strategies include starting projects or hobbies at full speed ahead and then dropping them cold. In the basement are his abandoned projects, along with the fragments of the pain he shares with Emily. His new enterprise is winemaking, which he plans on doing with Jamie and surprising his wife with when he has the wine bottled. He desires to earn back her attention and respect, but he again becomes sidetracked by his patients--he believes he has stumbled upon the cure for chronic pain. Meanwhile, Emily feels guilty for not having maternal instincts. She loves Jamie but cannot knock down that wall between them. She is convinced that her daughter hates her and that it is too late for them to forge a bond. Instead, they communicate with a dreadful silence or stilted sarcasm. This story is largely about pain, in all its physical and emotional contours--acute, chronic, dormant, breakthrough, intermittent, repressed, ransacked--individual and universal. Simon's private agony is redirected to his devotion to his patients and his personal crusade to cure their chronic pain. But there is also a burning, subconscious agenda running underneath Simon's goodwill that threatens to subvert his best intentions. In the meantime, Emily has found her own salve, evading her pain by recoiling from her family. Eventually, the woeful tailspin they have created will confront them with the troubled past and threaten to precipitate a fatal future. Kate Ledger writes with a whip and holds her stride with a balletic rhythm; she alternates from Emily's story to Simon's with the alacrity of a gazelle, delivering a wry, ironic, and epigrammatic narrative ringed with an aching pathos that trembles and intoxicates the reader. The gaps fill in gradually, with impeccable timing, opening up periodic core glimpses into the Bears' bedrock distress. Unputdownable. Addendum: For anyone who lives with chronic pain or loves anyone who suffers from chronic pain, this is a must

Kate Ledger has written a terrific debut novel. I started reading it one evening and continued late into the night. I couldn't put this book down. REMEDIES tells the story -- and history -- of Simon and Emily. Their marriage is flawed, but they are wonderfully complex, vivid, engaging characters. Simon is a doctor who may be on the verge of a miraculous discovery. His wife Emily is a public relations executive who is making some discoveries of her own -- about her family, her past, and herself. This novel is a work of literary fiction, but it has the complicated, compelling plot of a great mystery. It's filled with unexpected twists and revelations that kept me turning the pages all the way to the end. Above all else, Kate Ledger is an amazing writer. Her prose achieves the rare quality of being both vivid and invisible. REMEDIES is a deeply satisfying novel on every level.

In "Remedies," Kate Ledger has written a stark portrait of a devastated marriage. Devastated by the spouses' inability to overcome their pasts, both as individuals and as a couple... Devastated by the spouses' self-absorption... Devastated by the spouses' narcissisms... Devastated by the spouses' self-delusions... This, in a nutshell, sums up "Remedies." Dr. Simon Bear, a respected physician, is driven by his need for acceptance and affirmation. Conceived at a time when unwed mothers were considered "ruined," Simon has been raised by the stepfather who married his mother while she was pregnant. Having never felt a part of his mother and stepfather's close relationship, Simon continues, without success, to seek their approval. Thus, he is unable to remedy his own emotional pain. Failing to obtain his parents' approval, Simon focuses on satisfying his patients' need for relief from physical pain and basks in their adulation. Simon throws himself into his work, deluding himself into the belief that only he understands and empathizes with them. And so, in providing a remedy for his patients' anguish, Simon attempts to provide an alternate remedy for his own pain. Focusing on his patients' physical pains, Simon is oblivious to his wife's silent anguish. Emily, successful as a partner in a public relations firm, is torn by her unexpressed pain and by the realization that her marriage is a hollow shell. Her pain - hiding her father's psychological illness and subsequent suicide, failing to mourn the death of their infant son Caleb, being emotionally separated from their daughter Jamie - serves as a catalyst for renewing an affair with a former lover. Only when Jamie almost dies as the result of an infection and only when Emily's lover returns to his wife, does Emily confront her demons and move forward with a new life. She has truly found the remedy for her pain. I found both Simon Bear and his parents to be unappealing individuals who never allow their focus to move beyond their own worlds. They never become well-rounded individuals or exhibit any personal growth. Even in the final scene, when Simon is leaving the synagogue to seek Emily's forgiveness, he "felt certain he would know what to say..." In my opinion, Simon remains an individual who believes he is always correct and can see no one other than himself. Emily is a more strongly written character who grows through the novel and is able to move beyond her self interest. She becomes someone to respect. "Remedies" is an intelligent, well written book; but, it is not an entertaining book. Rather, it is an emotionally draining look at a marriage which has been allowed to languish and die.