The House of God
Published on 7. September 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
432 pages
978-0-425-23809-7 (ISBN)
Description
By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative novel about what it really takes to become a doctor.
"The raunchy, troubling, and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. Singularly compelling...brutally honest."-The New York Times
Struggling with grueling hours and sudden life-and-death responsibilities, Basch and his colleagues, under the leadership of their rule-breaking senior resident known only as the Fat Man, must learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings.
A phenomenon ever since it was published, The House of God was the first unvarnished, unglorified, and uncensored portrait of what training to become a doctor is truly like, in all its terror, exhaustion and black comedy. With more than two million copies sold worldwide, it has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels ever written.
With an introduction by John Updike
"The raunchy, troubling, and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. Singularly compelling...brutally honest."-The New York Times
Struggling with grueling hours and sudden life-and-death responsibilities, Basch and his colleagues, under the leadership of their rule-breaking senior resident known only as the Fat Man, must learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings.
A phenomenon ever since it was published, The House of God was the first unvarnished, unglorified, and uncensored portrait of what training to become a doctor is truly like, in all its terror, exhaustion and black comedy. With more than two million copies sold worldwide, it has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels ever written.
With an introduction by John Updike
Reviews / Votes
Praise for The House of God"The raunchy, troubling, and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. Singularly compelling...brutally honest."-The New York Times
"Bawdy, blistering...this is Catch-22 with stethoscopes."-Cosmopolitan
"Wonderfully wild, ribald, erotic, bitter, compassionate...in the same spirit as Catch-22."-The Seattle Times
"A wildly funny, sad, laugh-out-loud, frightening, outrageous, thought-provoking, moving book...a story of modern medicine rarely, if ever, told."-The Houston Chronicle
"Does for the practice of medicine what Catch-22 and M*A*S*H did for the practice of warfare."-The Newark Star-Ledger
"Mordantly funny, brilliantly ironic...A writer of outstanding substance and style."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York, NY
United States
Publishing group
Penguin Putnam Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 138 mm
Width: 206 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
342 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-425-23809-7 (9780425238097)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Samuel Shem is a novelist, playwright, and, for three decades, a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty. His novels include The House of God, Mount Misery, and Fine. He is coauthor with his wife, Janet Surrey, of the hit Off-Broadway play Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the story of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (winner of the 2007 Performing Arts Award of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence), and We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Men and Women.