Comments (0)Remedies
October 2, 2009Barbara Pash
Associate Editor
Kate Ledger
G.P. Putnam’s Sons 2009, 375 pages (hardcover), $24.95
In “Remedies,” first-time novelist Kate Ledger tells the story of Emily and Simon Bear, a seemingly successful married couple. Emily is a partner in a public relations firm; Simon, a physician. The couple live in Baltimore, in a beautiful house in Guilford with their teenage daughter, Jamie, a sullen presence who appears to be the only problem in this lovely picture.
Behind the scenes, though, is a different story. Emily and Simon are haunted by the death of their first child, who died at the age of six weeks from a disease that was not diagnosed in time. Over the years, the couple have grown apart, buried themselves in their work and ignored their daughter.
Then, an old boyfriend of Emily’s suddenly reappears in her life and jars her out of her complacency. There is an affair. She moves out of the house and gets her own apartment, but the boyfriend ultimately disappoints.
Meanwhile, Simon hires a young nurse who questions his liberal dispensing of painkillers to his patients. She turns him in, an investigation begins and his medical license is suspended. A former senior writer at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the author is obviously familiar with medical terms, which she uses liberally in her sections on Simon.
Ledger skillfully depicts the deterioration of the Bears’ marriage and the resulting estrangement from each other. But it is hard to be sympathetic with the couple, who each come off as selfish individuals. It is only when Jamie becomes sick and is hospitalized — a development that echoes the infant son’s death — that Emily finally shows her humanity.
The Bears are secular Jews, and reference is made to their membership in a downtown shul. But there are no Shabbat candles, no Chanukah celebrations or Passover seders. Judaism doesn’t seem to play a role in their lives and so the ending, in which Simon turns to religion for solace and strength, hardly rings true.