by Claire Holden Rothman
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My Sister the Doctor: Claire Holden Rothman on The Heart Specialist
Agnes White, the heroine of The Heart Specialist, is based on the real-life Maude Abbott. But as I wrote the novel, I needed to draw on sources more intimate than history to bring Agnes to life. Among the most important of these sources was my own sister, Dr. Ann Rothman.
Ann is not quite two years older than I am. For much of my childhood, she was my best friend. We spent countless hours together, sleeping in the same bedroom, eating at the same table, bathing in the same sudsy water and playing, endlessly, indoors and out. More than a friend, Ann was the person I admired most. She was brainy, hardworking and utterly untroubled by girly squeamishness. Being nearsighted, if she found something that interested her--a worm, a slug, a lizard--she was liable to give it an inquisitive sniff. And more often than not, she would discuss her discovery in minute detail over dinner that evening, taking it for granted that everyone at the table shared her passion for things that wriggled and squirmed and oozed.
Readers of The Heart Specialist will see my sister's intellectual vigor in my heroine. Like Ann, young Agnes is fearless in her quest for knowledge, memorably performing a do-it-yourself dissection in a freezing barn. She's also myopic; not above smelling the things she can only see mistily with her imperfect vision. And she's industrious. She has to be, to overcome the obstacles that stand between her and her goal of becoming a physician.
It's in those cruel obstacles, of course, that Agnes parts company from my sister. During the 1980's, Ann Rothman studied medicine at McGill--the very faculty that refuses Agnes in the novel. Ann never doubted for an instant that she could be fully a doctor and fully a woman at the same time. No such certainty is offered to Agnes. On the contrary, her fragile confidence is assailed again and again by a world that refuses to honor her dreams. Agnes must make her own way. Against all odds, she succeeds, mastering the intricacies of cardiac science even as she unlocks the secrets of her own vulnerable heart.
It's surely obvious to anyone who reads these words that Agnes is dear to me. Her ultimate quiet triumph is due, in large part, to the inspiration I've drawn from someone dearer still: my sister.
"I can pay a book no higher compliment than to say I didn't want it to end. With The Heart Specialist, I rationed my reading, permitting myself only a few chapters at a sitting so as to savour the writing and the story."—Montreal Gazette
"[A]bly researched and written, with never an ungraceful sentence."—Toronto Globe and Mail “Rothman has provided insight and perhaps gratitude in readers for those who paved the way.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer“Quietly captivating, the tone of The Heart Specialist is reminiscent of English classics like Jane Eyre ... a tale of persistence, of dreams realized and dashed—it delivers on soft cat feet, and leaves one feeling satisfied and contemplative.”—Missourian“Brilliant first novel ... Rothman’s heartbreaking portrait of this trailblazer will long linger with the reader.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review"Based on the life of one of Canada's pioneering female physicians, Rothman's novel paints an arresting portrait of an indomitable yet vulnerable young woman."—Booklist
“An epic that effortlessly navigates both complex medical concepts and the most basic human emotions…The Heart Specialist is a feminist-toned historical narrative that’s refreshingly unsentimental.”—BUST Magazine
“Rothman clearly admires this early feminist pioneer, who overcomes tremendous male prejudice to establish a distinguished career in her own right.”—Kirkus Reviews
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