Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures: Stories

by Vincent Lam

Book Overview

Winner of the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize

An astonishing literary debut centred around four students as they apply to medical school, qualify as doctors and face the realities of working in medicine, from a powerful voice in fiction.

Following the interlinked stories of a group of medical students and the unique challenges they face, from the med school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evac missions, and terrifying new...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385661444
• ISBN13: 9780385661447
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Anchor Canada
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Doctors on the examining table

Vincent Lam's collection of linked short stories is fascinating and occasionally downright amazing. Nothing is predictable and much is off-putting about the four young characters and their experiences as they become doctors, but one becomes oddly at home with their ways, their medical world, and the weird combinations of hope and bleakness, of adrenaline and numbness, of intimacy and isolation that the stories offer. Lam writes beautifully and knowledgeably; this is an impressive and award-winning achievement for a first fiction by this Canadian doctor. After devouring a borrowed copy, I knew I had to have extra copies for my own bookshelf and for gifts.

Poignant tales that ring true

I found these interconnected stories very moving. Most doctor stories don't seem real to me. In these stories, it was the first story that I had a hard time getting into, but the others were excellent, and the twist on SARS really worked. As a physician, I usually don't read medical fiction because it is too hard to suspend disbelief as is so often required of fiction. It this case, I didn't feel like I needed to.

beautiful stories

Basically this is a book about medical school and the early days of practicing medicine for the four main characters. I can't put my finger on why but it has stayed with me-it's the type of book that I think of long after finishing it. Maybe because it's so beautifully written, or the stories are captivating, or you get to know the characters so deeply. It is so provocative. I read some criticism that the stories didn't really relate wholly to each other, or were incomplete somehow. I could see that point of view but didn't really see it as a shortcoming. My only complaint was that I felt like I couldn't get enough. Hopefully he will write more.

A solid collection

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is a solid collection of short stories by Vincent Lam, a practicing doctor in Toronto. Set in his hometown, the stories feel more like chapters in a loosely told novel, revolving around four Toronto doctors, than a standard short story collection. The stories are largely engaging, intelligent and readable, unfortunately a few of them also feel a bit forgettable, emotionally aloof and none of them feel much deeper than an episode of ER or Grey's Anatomy. When looked at as a whole, as a collection of connected stories, the narrative thread running through all the stories feels unresolved. As well, while the stories revolve around the aforementioned doctors we only really get a sense of who two of them are, even then Lam often keeps us at a distance from them. Often times all four doctors feel more like plot devices to help deliver medical intrigue than living, breathing, multi-dimensional characters. However, the book isn't about creating great characters or spinning fantastic yarns - its intention is to capture what it feels like to be a doctor and in this the book succeeds. Vincent Lam is a talented writer and when he gets some material to wrap his considerable skills around he may find it more lucrative to move his practice from the hospital to his den, writing full time.

Captivating and insightful short story collection

Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that he had trouble ending short stories in ways that would satisfy a general public. The dilema of how to end a short story and not leave the reader feeling unfulfilled is an enourmous challenge for any writer. Admittedly, I felt unfulfilled by some of the stories in Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, but for the most part I found this collection facinating and highly entertaining. Lam draws on his own experience as an emergency room physician and provides an insider's view into the challenges of medical school and the demands of being a physician. Lam introduces the reader to four young medical students and follows them through twelve loosely woven stories. Readers expecting Bloodletting to resemble a novel, where each story is linked to the last may be disappointed. The first three stories follow this format, but while each story does feature at least one of the four young doctors, there is little connection between the remaining 9 stories. Like all short story collections, some are better than others. The strongest stories (`Eli', `Night Flight', and `Before Light') are the ones that explore how ethically complicated being a physician can be. Lam's writing is fresh, insightful, and often touched with humor. I particularly enjoyed the movie scenes that Fritz imagines, while longing for his former girlfriend in `How to Get in Medical School Part II', and the highly entertaining story of Chen's grandfather in a `Very Long Migration' (which sounds like it may be the basis for Lam's first novel). While a little uneven at times, overall Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures is a captivating, insightful look at the complicated, challenging, and emotionally draining world of medicine. I look forward to Lam's debut novel.