Re-read for a book group, but I didn't love it any the less this time around.
Doctor Katie Carr has always defined her 'goodness' by the people around her- her absent minded workmate Becca, her husband, The Angriest Man In Holloway (he makes his living writing a bile-filled column for the paper), and by knowing that she, as a GP, at least tries to make a difference. After her husband, David, visits an alternative healer, and makes a sudden about-face in terms of how he lives his life, Katie is adrift, as are their (wonderfully and realistically written) children, Molly and Tom. Fantastic book, this, and made for an excellent, excellent book group discussion title.
"Later, half-asleep, I start to dream about all the people in the world who live bad lives- all the drug dealers and arms manufactures and corrupt politicians, all the cynical bastards everywhere - getting touched by GoodNews and changing like David has changed. The dream scares me. Because I need these people - they serve as my compass. Due south there are saints and nurses and teachers in inner-city schools; due north, there are managing directors of tobacco companies and angry local newspaper columnists. Please don't take my due north away, because then I will be adrift, lost in a land where the things I have done and the things I haven't done really mean something."
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