Health and Happiness

by Diane Johnson

Book Overview

This brilliant, engaging, cleverly manipulated piece of fiction (San Francisco Chronicle), written by the author of Le Divorce, captures the moral dilemmas and life-and-death decisions that are the foundation of hospital life, portraying the continuous clashes of motive and sensibility that create the ongoing comedy of medical manners.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452280001
• ISBN13: 9780452280007
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Better than General Hospital

Why must one choose between a life of happiness and a life of Puritanical morality? Is good health the result of a morally good but boring life? This novel is much more lighthearted than The Shadow Knows but deals with the same subjects of the nature of evil and human frailty. Once again Diane Johnson is a modern day Jane Austen. Setting her novel in a private hospital in San Francisco, Johnson outdoes General Hospital and has a huge cast of characters ranging from a Filipino nurse to a visiting Chinese medical student to a Californian socialite/housewife. Mimi, the volunteer coordinator of Alta Buena Hospital is looking forward to the possibility of an adventurous life. As a divorced mother, Mimi made many sacrifices for her children who are now grown. Dr. Philip Watts, the dashing chief physician, is looking forward to his well-deserved promotion to a new research facility. Philip is aware of his role as a leader and has always tried to be the perfect doctor whom patients can depend on. He claims that he will never have a private practice because he never wants to take a patient's money. Of course, he leaves out the fact that he married a rich socialite. What neither Mimi nor Philip knows is that a gorgeous patient, Ivy Tarro, will be their figure of fate. Ivy is a new mother who up until recently had enjoyed the proverbial carefree single life. Sick and faced with the possibility of death, Ivy sees that her risky life style has put her daughter in danger of becoming an orphan. As Ivy becomes more and more embarrassed by her lack of aim, she marvels at the inner workings of the hospital. Through Ivy, Philip becomes the heroic doctor he always secretly wanted to be but may end up jeopardizing his career, reputation, and marriage. Mimi, despite her fantasies of a new life of adventure, finds she is quite attached to the safety of her house, which is in the path of a proposed hospital parking lot. To her and everyone's surprise, she starts to fight for her house. Mimi also keeps crossing path with Dr. Bradford Evans, an ex-love and embarrassing reminder for her to be prudent. Will she ever be free to move on to a new life of adventure? The real love story in this novel is the love of the community for the hospital. We watch Ivy falling in love with Alta Buena and wonder if Mimi and Dr. Philip will leave for the allure of a more exciting life.

Clever and entertaining

Coming from the Bay Area and having worked extensively in the health care field here, I was quite taken with the manner in which Johnson was able to achieve a very authentic voice. Ivy was interesting and it was fun tagging along with her as she dealt with the many struggles set before her. I liked that the story ended with her getting her act together rather than riding off into the sunset with a man as a solution to her problems.