The Doctor's Wife — Elizabeth Brundage

"The memory starts here, in my apron pocket, with the gun."

So begins The Doctor's Wife, a stunning debut novel about four people and the cataclysmic intersection of their lives. From the outside, the Knowles family has it all. Michael is a rising OB/GYN at a prominent private practice in Albany, New York; he also moonlights at a local women's health clinic, and they live in a rambling Federal farmhouse with their two kids. But Annie has become tired of her husband' absences, and her role as wife/mother/teacher has worn thin. She begins a love affair with bad-boy celebrity painter Simon Haas, who is married to his muse and model, Lydia, upon whom he built his career. Simon reawakens Annie's passion--but events soon take a dark turn for the Knowles family.

Abortion, local evangelism, marital disenchantment, and the rifts of social class: Brundage takes on the fault lines of our era with a deft hand.