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Other Women's Children
Dr. Amelia Stern became a pediatrician to cure children, not see them die. In a kind of bargain she strikes with herself and fate, she does everything she can to save other women's children, hoping to keep her own child safe from harm.
It's never easy. Amelia's hospital life contrasts so starkly with her cozy domestic world that she can't help but bring it home sometimes. Always available for medical emergencies and the needs of her helpless patients, Amelia begins to ignore her own needs. And her family life and marriage fade in importance as she heroically fights to save all of her children.
A tender and timely examination of a doctor's world, a mother's world, and a wife's world, OTHER WOMEN'S CHILDREN is a revealing X ray of the complications of women's lives today.
"Superb . . . A poignant literary page-turner." --The New York Times Book Review
It's never easy. Amelia's hospital life contrasts so starkly with her cozy domestic world that she can't help but bring it home sometimes. Always available for medical emergencies and the needs of her helpless patients, Amelia begins to ignore her own needs. And her family life and marriage fade in importance as she heroically fights to save all of her children.
A tender and timely examination of a doctor's world, a mother's world, and a wife's world, OTHER WOMEN'S CHILDREN is a revealing X ray of the complications of women's lives today.
"Superb . . . A poignant literary page-turner." --The New York Times Book Review
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
About the author
Perri Klass
33 books44 followersPerri Klass is a pediatrician who writes fiction and non-fiction. She writes about children and families, about medicine, about food and travel, and about knitting. Her newest book is a novel, The Mercy Rule, and the book before that was a work of non-fiction, Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor, written in the form of letters to her older son as he starts medical school.
She lives in New York City, where she is Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University, and she has three children of her own. She is also Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, a national literacy organization which works through doctors and nurses to promote parents reading aloud to young children.
source: www.perriklass.com
She lives in New York City, where she is Professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University, and she has three children of her own. She is also Medical Director of Reach Out and Read, a national literacy organization which works through doctors and nurses to promote parents reading aloud to young children.
source: www.perriklass.com
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 29, 2023
A time capsule of late 90s thinking about Big Issues and also a lot of navel-gazing from what would now be called a privileged viewpoint, however hardworking, intelligent and well-intentioned the holder of those views might be. Klass is such a gifted essayist but her longer works fail to ignite. Still, kudos for tackling the tough subjects.
January 10, 2009
"The copy of Little Women Amelia has been keeping at her bedside is the copy she read when she was little. It would be only a very slight exaggeration to say that she knows the book by heart--certainly she could pass a trivia test on any chapter. (What was Amy punished for in school? How did Jo first meet Laurie? What was Beth's pseudonym in the Pickwick Club? What did Meg look like when her wealthy friends dressed her up?) She took that copy with her to college, and to medical school, and now she keeps it by her bed, to read a little bit before she goes to sleep, to drift, as she has done all through her life, into a house where long graceful skirts rustle across the floor and Marmee knows the answers. The March household welcomes her easily in the evening; she has slipped into it so many times that her imagination takes her easily through the rooms and hallways of their house." (50-51)
"And for those of us who get watch children get sick and die, over and over, there will always be questions of the nitty-gritty: yes, but who empties the bedpan, and what do you do when she misses the basin and vomits on the sheets? But this I suppose is quibbling; all births and deaths have always been attended by bloody linen and the smell of excrement, and that does not necessarily make them any less holy and wondrous, any less close to the mysteries of the eternal." (65)
"In Amelia's clinic, the babies mark off the passage of time. Two-week visit, two-month visit, four, six, nine months. Amelia remembers Michael as an exceptionally beautiful newborn baby; now Marcelle brings him in for his two-month checkup, and he looks completely different. Healthy and thriving, but he has lost that downy newborn look, and with it also most of his character; he is a fat little piglet, all chubby thighs and yellow hair and drool. Not one of the baby types Amelia admires, though there are plenty of people to call him cute; he looks like a baby in an ad. No soul to him, really." (144-145)
"His eyes never open. He doesn't squeeze anyone's hand. He doesn't blow a kiss, or speak at the last to promise a better world, a golden door opening. He just breathes less and less. Carbon dioxide is building up in his body, suppressing his respiratory drive. The tissues of his body are getting very little oxygen, and they are dying, brain and liver and kidneys. And finally he is breathing almost not at all, and then both father and grandmother look up in unison, as if something has changed in the little boy they hold." (290)
"And for those of us who get watch children get sick and die, over and over, there will always be questions of the nitty-gritty: yes, but who empties the bedpan, and what do you do when she misses the basin and vomits on the sheets? But this I suppose is quibbling; all births and deaths have always been attended by bloody linen and the smell of excrement, and that does not necessarily make them any less holy and wondrous, any less close to the mysteries of the eternal." (65)
"In Amelia's clinic, the babies mark off the passage of time. Two-week visit, two-month visit, four, six, nine months. Amelia remembers Michael as an exceptionally beautiful newborn baby; now Marcelle brings him in for his two-month checkup, and he looks completely different. Healthy and thriving, but he has lost that downy newborn look, and with it also most of his character; he is a fat little piglet, all chubby thighs and yellow hair and drool. Not one of the baby types Amelia admires, though there are plenty of people to call him cute; he looks like a baby in an ad. No soul to him, really." (144-145)
"His eyes never open. He doesn't squeeze anyone's hand. He doesn't blow a kiss, or speak at the last to promise a better world, a golden door opening. He just breathes less and less. Carbon dioxide is building up in his body, suppressing his respiratory drive. The tissues of his body are getting very little oxygen, and they are dying, brain and liver and kidneys. And finally he is breathing almost not at all, and then both father and grandmother look up in unison, as if something has changed in the little boy they hold." (290)
February 15, 2011
It seems you either love this or hate this. I hated it because I just finished another book by Perri Klass, about an overweight female pediatrician with a son and daughter, whose husband cheated on her once. This book is about an overweight female pediatrician with a son whose husband cheated on her with one of her friends, apparently every third night when she was on call. I HATED that the husband cheated in the first book( and that was just once) and that his wife's response was to consider that now she had the moral high ground. I especially hated that this character apparently allowed her husband's infidelity to continue and considered herself very modern for it. The character goes on to explain that she hates it when a character's infidelity poisons relationships, sometimes poisons them for years. I think the author must feel the same way, but I personally hate it when infidelity is treated lightly, like it isn't poisonous. I won't bother reading another book by Perri Klass if every character is the same.
June 18, 2013
I enjoyed this. The author does an interesting thing by threading the main character's love of literature into the narrative. She is particularly taken with portrayals of dying children -- understandable since she is a pediatrician. This book was written more or less in the earlier days of AIDS, so it was interesting to see that progression, as well. The relationship between the main character and her husband wasn't of much interest to me, and it just didn't feel developed. Which could possibly be the point, I suppose. Also, there were several things about her son that didn't sit well with me -- I felt like Klass started to go one way, then changed her mind, but left the trail anyway. I don't know.
September 3, 2008
I loved this book when I first read it, and just as much in this recent re-reading. It is not a "light" read; the character, as well as the author, is a pediatrician who treats many children with AIDS, as well as other life-threatening illnesses. But the book is beautifully written, alternating between first and third person to enhance the depth of characters. I think it resonates for many of us who have worked with children, and who have struggled to balance our passion for that work with our personal lives.
July 31, 2008
When I read this, I still wanted to be a pediatrician. Klass' ability to infuse medical skill with compassion was very enticing to me...a possible future doctor. She doesn't over-sap the characters and doesn't dwell on the importance of doctors. The medical professionals here are neither heroes nor villains. They are just working people trying to save another life or help another child out. Well done!
August 25, 2011
Well-written, moving account of a pediatrician who cares for sick children while acutely aware that her own child is, by and large, healthy and normal. Prose alternates between third and first person, with the nineteenth-century-style omniscient narrator thrown in. I didn't think all three approaches were necessary, and the first-person sections seemed obtrusive to me at first, but I got used to it. I'd read more by Klass.
May 10, 2012
"A Not Entirely Benign Procedure" is an account of this author’s four years at Harvard Medical School and her internship and residency in Boston as a pediatrician. "Other Women’s Children" takes up where the non- fiction ends, and explores other aspects of her life and training, such as being a wife and mother. This is sort of an autobiographical novel; I think I enjoyed the non-fiction more.
March 20, 2013
If there is anyone out there who can explain to me what the hell happened in this book, I would be glad to read it. Either Klass is Stern, and we are to read things from her persepctive, or Klass isn't Stern. If Klass is not Stern, then we are left with a first person, third person, and occasionally autobiographical tale of a woman who clearly has everything but nothing. I read it in 24 hours, one because it's literally that excruciating, and two because I couldn't wait to be done.
September 27, 2012
Loved this book, cried my eyes out and looked forward to free moments in the day where I could speed through 10 more pages at a time. Perri Klass has very talented observational writing style. Sort of like Meg Wolitzer in "10 Year Nap" but less self-consciously and annoyingly clever. my new favorite author.
August 15, 2015
i'm not sure why i gave this only three stars after i finished it. now, about a month later, i'm writing this review and i honestly don't understand why i only gave it three starts. i remember enjoying reading it. i guess there were some parts i wasn't fond of. maybe the ending?
November 22, 2015
2.5 stars. As a pediatrician/mom I really wanted to like this book; I have enjoyed Perri Klass's non-fiction. But, the writing style here didn't work for me (particularly changing between 1st and 3rd person narrator) and the characters just didn't speak to me.
February 17, 2007
I learned to understand how to better balance my life as a counselor with my home life and how difficult this can be. This was a very honest, forthright and cut to the quick narrative.
March 30, 2008
I could relate to this book so much, working as the primary breadwinner in our family, raising a four year old son, caring for others as a nurse. I was disappointed with the ending though.
August 15, 2008
This book is sure to be on my Top 10 of the year. This was a compelling story and the writing style is just wonderful. I highly recommend this book and I am off to read more by this author!
August 16, 2009
The confused voice made it an often frustrating book that nonetheless had considerable resonance in its attitutde about the care of children.
August 25, 2012
I enjoyed reading Perri Klass' regular column in Discovery Magazine back in the day. Her novel did not disappoint.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews