The Good Doctor
Authors: Damon Galgut
THE GOOD DOCTOR
D
AMON
G
ALGUT
Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel,
A Sinless Season,
when he was seventeen. His
other books include
Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Impostor
and
In a Strange Room,
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010.
The Good
Doctor
was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. Damon Galgut lives in Cape Town.
International acclaim for
The Good Doctor
‘The Good Doctor
is, quite simply, one of the best novels I have read in years, one of the most profound and luminous testimonies to the transition between the old and
the new in South Africa... Damon Galgut transcends the familiar territory of South Africa today to grapple with essential human darkness... I have now read Galgut’s novel three times; I can foresee
returning to it many more times in the future. It may well turn out to be one of the most shining milestones on our literary, moral and philosophical journey from past to future.’ Andre Brink,
Sunday Independent
(South Africa)
‘A work of impressive depth and focus... Deservedly shortlisted for the Booker,
The Good Doctor
is a triumph of understatement, drawing its reader subtly into the
political debris which forms the unspoken motivation for its characters’ every move. With his narrator’s sparse and poignant use of language, Galgut brilliantly encapsulates the languor of a
society still reeling from the past, not yet confident of its future, and unwilling to confront the hard realities of either.’ Ed Halliwell,
Observer
‘The Good Doctor
is a sustained meditation upon the unreliability of new dawns... Damon Galgut has written a parable which turns on a question crucial to South African
life: who has been lying to whom – about politics, about change, about past and future? Put another way, how much of the uncomfortable truth can people take – and what good will it do? Hanging over
this fine novel is an air of angry melancholy... Galgut makes mincemeat of the sustaining hypocrisies, slogans and political pieties of the South African dream. And yet, this is not a bleak book;
mostly, I think, because it has the brazen ring of truth.’ Christopher Hope,
Guardian
‘Darkly impressive... A latter-day
Heart of Darkness,
which powerfully depicts the dangers both of and to idealism... It well deserves its places on this year’s Man
Booker shortlist.’ Michael Arditti,
Daily Mail
A taut exploration of the shifting landscape, cultural and moral, of the new South Africa. In recalling not only a book such as Coetzee’s
Disgrace,
but also with a
strong whiff of Graham Greene about it.’ Erica Wagner,
The Times
‘There are echoes of Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer and Joseph Conrad, all of whom have written with an exacting emotional precision about the European’s place in Africa.
Galgut’s story of a doctor attempting to carve out his place in a run-down local hospital vibrates with an eerie sense of foreboding... A gripping read, laced throughout with powerful emotional
truth and Damon Galgut’s extraordinary vision.’ Julie Wheelwright,
Independent
A subtle but tremendously powerful novel... Galgut creates a distinct world with an atmosphere reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s
The Castle,
where each event has an
unpredictable impact.’
Daily Telegraph
Summer Reading: Thirty Best Novels
‘Galgut handles the crackling tension between races with subtlety and sympathy... The “hot, dense country” is made palpable, and the density is moral as well as
topographical... Galgut’s book is sensory and reflective in equal and impressive measure.’
Sunday Times
‘Genuinely compelling... Damon Galgut evokes a landscape made dangerous and strange by precipitous social changes, with the weight of history as emotional a burden for the
individual as it is for the wider society... An eerie, fluently written novel.’
Metro
‘Written with economy and grace...
The Good Doctor
is a novel about guilty memory and the instability of the past... It is also about how we can never evade the truth of
what we have done, especially in a country as tainted as South Africa.’ Jason Cowley,
New Statesman
‘Of the six novels shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize for fiction, easily the most subversive is Damon Galgut’s
The Good Doctor...
The passing of apartheid
robbed South Africa’s white novelists of a great artistic cause. Some, like Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee and Andre Brink, are trying to reinvent themselves. Of the younger generation, Mr Galgut,
with his spare, unhurried sentences, his carefully chosen words, is the most talented.’
Economist
‘Galgut’s book is full of arresting images... and its evocation of the African landscape is superb. Equally good is the treatment of the relationship between the two men, and
their gradual realisation of the philosophical gulf which exists between them... [A] fine, disquieting novel.’
Jewish Chronicle
‘The novel is structured with... unobtrusive expertise, and expressed in spare, tough prose that can sketch deftly the behaviour of both inanimate things and people... It is
the contradictions and strange details of his bleak landscape that lend compulsiveness to
The Good Doctor’s
serious concerns.’
Times Literary Supplement
A sense of heightened unease runs through the novel, one that seems calculated to reflect not just Frank’s anxious state of mind but also the mood of the country as a whole...
Slim, thoughtful and readable, it should bring Damon Galgut the international recognition he deserves.’
Literary Review
‘Damon Galgut has done the most difficult thing possible for any novelist in
The Good Doctor,
drawing the changing political landscape in post-apartheid South Africa
without a hint of polemics. A simple and very intimate story, eddying out into a more powerful exploration of ethnic issues.’ Hugo Hamilton, Books of the Year,
Irish Times
‘Absorbing... In spare, declarative prose, Galgut spins a brisk and bracing story; but he’s also in pursuit of something murkier; the double-edged nature of doing good in a
land where “the past has only just happened”.’
New Yorker
A sobering story... told in luminous prose... This is a good, provocative and cautionary tale of a good man trying to do good at the wrong time and in the wrong place.’
Washington Times
‘Exquisite... It is a testament to Galgut’s skill that this mostly quiet novel can leave such a lasting sense of urgency. And shame. That, after all, is what great fiction is
meant to do.’
Boston Globe
‘Taut and compelling... Galgut’s fine, unsettling novel... feels freighted with mystery and moment, replete with significant incident.’
The Nation
‘Galgut writes conversation that is delicate, compelling and mysterious. His prose... is utterly seductive and suspenseful. Tragic and brilliant...
The Good Doctor
is
informed by the alienation of Albert Camus, and deeply resonant with Thomas Mann’s moral interrogations of politics and society... Remarkable.’
Globe and Mail
(Canada)
A wonderful book... Galgut has terrific insight into characters, completely free of cliche.’
Sydney Morning Herald
(Australia)
‘Damon Galgut is a real find...
The Good Doctor
is classy from the first page... Because there are subtle ambiguities throughout, different readers will come to
different conclusions about Frank – but I don’t think anyone will be unsure about the quality of this writing.’
Courier-Mail
(Australia)
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by
Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
This paperback edition published by Atlantic Books in 2011
Copyright © Damon Galgut 2003
The moral right of Damon Galgut to be identified as
the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,
characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work
of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities
is entirley coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.
13579 10 8642
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 085789 172 3
eBook ISBN: 978 085189 172 3
Printed in Great Britain
Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26-27 Boswell Street
London
WC1N 3JZ
Hundreds of miles of desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know
when he will go.
CHEKHOV
Contents
Author’s Note and Acknowledgements
1
The first time I saw him I thought,
he won’t last.
I was sitting in the office in the late afternoon and he appeared suddenly in the doorway, carrying a suitcase in one hand and wearing plain clothes – jeans and a brown shirt – with his white
coat on top. He looked young and lost and a bit bewildered, but that wasn’t why I thought what I did. It was because of something else, something I could see in his face.
He said, ‘Hello...? Is this the hospital?’
His voice was unexpectedly deep for somebody so tall and thin.
‘Come in,’ I said. ‘Put down your bag.’
He came in, but he didn’t put down the bag. He held it close while he looked around at the pink walls, the empty chairs, the dusty desk in the corner, the frail plants wilting in their pots. I
could see that he thought there’d been some kind of mistake. I felt sorry for him.
‘I’m Frank Eloff,’ I said.
‘I’m Laurence Waters.’
‘I know.’
‘You know...?’
He seemed amazed that we should be expecting him, though he’d been sending faxes for days already, announcing his arrival.
‘We’re sharing a room,’ I told him. ‘Let me take you over.’
The room was in a separate wing. We had to cross an open space of ground, close to the parking lot. When he came in he must have walked this way, but now he looked at the path through the long
grass, the ragged trees overhead dropping their burden of leaves, as if he’d never seen them before.
We went down the long passage to the room. I’d lived and slept alone in here until today. Two beds, a cupboard, a small carpet, a print on one wall, a mirror, a green sofa, a low coffee table
made of synthetic wood, a lamp. It was all basic standard issue. The few occupied rooms all looked the same, as in some featureless bleak hotel. The only trace of individuality was in the
configuration of the furniture, but I’d never bothered to shift mine around till two days ago, when an extra bed had been brought in. I also hadn’t added anything. There was no personality in the
ugly, austere furniture; against this neutral backdrop, even a piece of cloth would have been revealing.
‘You can take that bed,’ I said. ‘There’s space in the cupboard. The bathroom’s through that door.’
