In the 1960s, getting into and through medical school was hard for a guy, and even harder for a "co-ed". Especially if issues of class and ethnicity complicated the picture. ANd money. And a war. And the draft. For two young medical trainees, a night on call in a crumbling municipal hosptial in the Bronx becomes the fulcrum of their lives. The story alternates between the drama of a busy night in a South Bronx hsopital and the events of their lives as undergraduates, medical students and particpants in the Anti-War movement as they find and steal the time to explore the events that brought them passionately together, and the misundertandings onboth sides that are the real reasons keeping them apart. "With its aspiring graduates, wise-cracking lovers, and crusading physicians, Andrew Levitas' debut novel is a thought-provoking page-turner, a cross between a screwball comedy and a Bildungsroman. Levitas captures the excitement of a memorable seminar discussion with the same panache with which he paces a thrilling car chase. A book about learning to live well, to love wisely, and to do some good in this world against the odds, its subtitle could have been A Sentimental Education."--Paul Howe |