Not the best medicine
TROUBLE<br>by Jesse Kellerman<br>Sphere pp390, ISBN: 978-0-7515-3825-0
Although both his parents are renowned authors, the anxiety of influence doesn't appear to hang too heavily over Jesse Kellerman. He has already made a name for himself, winning the 2003 Princess Grace Award for his playwriting and receiving critical praise for his debut novel Sunstroke.
Kellerman clearly has the gift of the gab and can lay down a good story as his second novel, Trouble, attests. The novel tells the story of Jonah Stem, a young, struggling medical student doing his practice. He is finding it difficult in the world of medics and has to do all the menial jobs in his rite of passage to make his mark among the other doctors. As if this isn't enough, he lands himself in an attempted murder scene of a young (and of course as stories go, incredibly stunning) lass called Eve. In his quest to save her, he accidentally kills the would-be attacker.
Jonah ends up in the conflicting situation of aspiring to be a life saver while being a taker of a life. As a result, his reputation among his colleagues drops even lower than it already was and he is shamefully directed to fix the photocopier.
As fate would have it, and this being a thriller, things only take a turn for the worse when, after striking up a relationship with his rescue victim, Eve, she turns out to be a psychotic stalker who turns Jonah's life upside down. He cannot get rid of her despite his manifold attempts.
The novel progresses cinematically. Kellerman's "doctah" wife has also played an important part in giving the novel a well-researched, highly informative and interesting medical side. It is also interesting the way the novel is structured in a medical-journal style: the three main sections surgery, psychiatry and family medicine which further subdivide into a medical student's journal entries.
Unfortunately, Kellerman comes across as an author undecided about what the novel's genre is: a thriller or a character study. Trouble wavers between the two and there is too little phlegm to the thriller story, which ends up being spread too thinly across parts of the novel. Between the first spout of excitement with the murder scene and the inconclusive denouement there is hardly enough plot development to enrich the 390 pages of the novel. Eve the stalker thus remains lurking vaguely in the background as the novel switches from the first surgery section to the psychiatry part, an in-depth character study of Jonah and his relationship with his mother, his druggie friend Lance and his failed relationship with a mentally ill girl.
Perhaps Kellerman's aim was to avoid the cliché of conforming to one sole genre. Indeed Kellerman manages to retain a tongue-in-cheek approach to a self-proclaimed thriller in that he doesn't stoop to the low extremes that so many popular fiction writers have sunk to in order to keep their readers amused. As Jonah points out, "You had to laugh. If you didn't, you'd drown." The detached approach to the thriller genre, as well as the fact that it is well written, is probably what saves the novel from falling into the category of yet another mediocre popular fiction novel. However, Kellerman strayed too far in avoiding conforming too religiously to one genre and overloaded Trouble with another character-study genre. The author clearly has storytelling potential and I'm keen to read what he'll come up with next.
• Ms Stivala has an MSc in Comparative and General Literature from the University of Edinburgh.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Retail & Commercial Co. Ltd.
Kellerman clearly has the gift of the gab and can lay down a good story as his second novel, Trouble, attests. The novel tells the story of Jonah Stem, a young, struggling medical student doing his practice. He is finding it difficult in the world of medics and has to do all the menial jobs in his rite of passage to make his mark among the other doctors. As if this isn't enough, he lands himself in an attempted murder scene of a young (and of course as stories go, incredibly stunning) lass called Eve. In his quest to save her, he accidentally kills the would-be attacker.
Jonah ends up in the conflicting situation of aspiring to be a life saver while being a taker of a life. As a result, his reputation among his colleagues drops even lower than it already was and he is shamefully directed to fix the photocopier.
As fate would have it, and this being a thriller, things only take a turn for the worse when, after striking up a relationship with his rescue victim, Eve, she turns out to be a psychotic stalker who turns Jonah's life upside down. He cannot get rid of her despite his manifold attempts.
The novel progresses cinematically. Kellerman's "doctah" wife has also played an important part in giving the novel a well-researched, highly informative and interesting medical side. It is also interesting the way the novel is structured in a medical-journal style: the three main sections surgery, psychiatry and family medicine which further subdivide into a medical student's journal entries.
Unfortunately, Kellerman comes across as an author undecided about what the novel's genre is: a thriller or a character study. Trouble wavers between the two and there is too little phlegm to the thriller story, which ends up being spread too thinly across parts of the novel. Between the first spout of excitement with the murder scene and the inconclusive denouement there is hardly enough plot development to enrich the 390 pages of the novel. Eve the stalker thus remains lurking vaguely in the background as the novel switches from the first surgery section to the psychiatry part, an in-depth character study of Jonah and his relationship with his mother, his druggie friend Lance and his failed relationship with a mentally ill girl.
Perhaps Kellerman's aim was to avoid the cliché of conforming to one sole genre. Indeed Kellerman manages to retain a tongue-in-cheek approach to a self-proclaimed thriller in that he doesn't stoop to the low extremes that so many popular fiction writers have sunk to in order to keep their readers amused. As Jonah points out, "You had to laugh. If you didn't, you'd drown." The detached approach to the thriller genre, as well as the fact that it is well written, is probably what saves the novel from falling into the category of yet another mediocre popular fiction novel. However, Kellerman strayed too far in avoiding conforming too religiously to one genre and overloaded Trouble with another character-study genre. The author clearly has storytelling potential and I'm keen to read what he'll come up with next.
• Ms Stivala has an MSc in Comparative and General Literature from the University of Edinburgh.
• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Retail & Commercial Co. Ltd.