A Mistake

Shuker (The Method Actors) grapples with responsibility in medicine in this brisk but middling novel. Exacting, brash general surgeon Elizabeth Taylor performs emergency surgery on Lisa, a mysteriously ill 20-something, at a public hospital in Wellington, New Zealand. In a taut, medical jargon-filled scene, Elizabeth discovers pervasive infection in Lisa’s organs. Elizabeth feels satisfied with the surgery despite some complications while she directed her trainee, Richard. Lisa, however, dies of sepsis less than a day later. Meanwhile, Elizabeth writes a scathing rebuke of the government’s plan to publish mortality statistics for each surgeon in New Zealand. Her concerns over damage to careers intensifies when, after a tense meeting with fellow doctors and hospital administrators during which she took full responsibility for Lisa’s surgical failure, she is placed on restricted duties. Elizabeth displaces her rage on home improvements and destroys relationships as she struggles to cope. Shuker’s almost frantic prose builds tension, but leaves facets of Elizabeth undeveloped, like her secret relationship with Robin, a nurse at her hospital, and the narrative is weighed down with digressions comparing the mistake to the Challenger shuttle explosion. Shuker’s unlikable main character evokes a visceral reaction, but the book does not reach the depths required for his heady exploration of guilt and the fuzzy line between error and malpractice. (Sept.)