Book Summary and Reviews of Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin

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Cynde Bloom Lahey

Was this a peak into Covid?
Compelling story depicting a world altering pandemic and the horrorific effects it has on a group of Doctors, their families and the general public.

JHSiess

Gripping, Emotional, & Believable
Author Kimmery Martin is a former emergency medicine physician, Readers may be surprised to learn that Doctors and Friends was not inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Martin actually studied the 1918 influenza epidemic and 2014 Ebola outbreak in Western Africa, and drafted an essay outlining her planned story in 2018. When her editor liked the idea, Martin proceeded with further research. In the process, she discovered Crisis in the Red Zone, a nonfictional account by Richard Preston of two physicians who contracted a strain of Ebola in 2014. The medical director was in possession of an untested, experimental drug -- but only enough of the medicine to treat one patient. That physician faced an ethical conundrum: whether to treat either of two colleagues and, if so, which one. That incident compelled Martin to have one of her characters face a similar ethical quagmire and the consequences of her decision in Doctors and Friends. But she upped the ante by contemplating what would transpire if those two people had been the doctor's children. Martin completed an initial rough draft of the book in January 2020, ironically, just as COVID-19 was on the horizon.

The fictional virus she devised bears no resemblance to COVID. Rather, she made up its virological characteristics and transmissibility long before the real pandemic took hold of the world. Martin's virus is even more terrifyingly deadly -- and strikes without warning. As the story opens, physicians Kira, Compton, Hannah, Vani, and Georgia, Martin's protagonist in The Antidote for Everything, are vacationing in Spain when news of a potentially deadly new virus begins filtering in. They first encounter and attempt to aid a little girl who is inexplicably burning up with fever and struggling to breathe. When the World Health Organization gets involved, they debate whether to continue their journey. Kira has no choice but to proceed to Seville where her fourteen-year-old daughter, Rorie, and son, Beau, age six, are staying. They decide to forge ahead and while sailing the Strait of Gibralter, a young woman suddenly falls to her knees, gasping for air. Sweaty, coughing, her gaze unfocused, and in obvious respiratory distress, the woman's nailbeds are bright blue, an unusual and telltale symptom. Kira springs toward the woman without thinking. She is seconds away from death and begins seizing. Compton urges Kira to step aside because it was Compton who held the little girl in an effort to stabilize her breathing and if the little girl had the virus, Compton has surely been exposed to it. Compton is unable to save her, and Kira knows what she has risked by not canceling the trip.

At the center of the story, Kira relates, via a first-person narrative, that she began her career in internal medicine with an aid organization. After her husband died suddenly of an undiagnosed illness, she then returned to the United States and completed a fellowship in infectious disease and specialized training in battling pandemics. She is a single mother in a relationship with Declan, whose biopharmaceutical laboratory is targeting the same virus that Kira studied at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). For him, everything is riding on the lab's upcoming request for a clinical trial.

Kira is the subject matter expert on artioviruses in the Viral Infections branch of the CDC and it is that type of virus that is fast spreading around the world. After quarantining, the women barely make it back to their respective homes and medical practices before travel is restricted. Martin's depiction of the impact of the disease is uncannily and eerily akin to what actually transpired in 2020. New York City becomes a ghost town and tragedy strikes more than one of her characters. Martin devotes successive chapters to each of them, relating, from their perspectives, their feelings, struggles, and the gut-wrenchingly heartbreaking decisions some of them must make as the pandemic sweeps the world and the number of fatalities climbs. The virus leaves few survivors and within a few months many of those who manage to survive their initial bout with the disease meet a horrific fate: rapid-onset dementia. Scientists scramble to develop and distribute an effective vaccine.

Through it all, the women keep in touch with and support each other, as some of them continue practicing medicine and some are forced by their circumstances to pivot. Hannah, who specializes in obstetrics/gynecology in San Diego, has been unable to conceive her own child. She must care for her patients while the virus rages with no knowledge of its long-term impact, if any, upon a pregnant woman who contracts the disease . . . or the unborn child. Hannah's previous efforts to become pregnant via invitro fertilization have failed, and she ponders the wisdom of one more attempt. Georgia revealed her own pregnancy while the women were in Spain and must take steps to protect herself and her baby. Meanwhile, Compton, who practices emergency medicine, is overwhelmed by the number of patients she treats and her inability to save them. She must carry on in spite of tremendous personal loss for the sake of her three children, but is profoundly and irrevocably changed by what she and her family go through. And Kira faces the aforementioned ethical conundrum, despite her vigilant efforts to keep her children safe.

Hindsight demonstrates that Martin's portrayal of the pandemic is starkly accurate and chilling, particularly her descriptions of a world in lockdown and the toll the disease takes on medical personnel. And the fast-paced story is riveting, keeping readers engaged to see who will survive and whether Declan's company will conduct a successful clinical trial. Likewise, Kira's plight is emotionally gripping and suspenseful. It is one of the most effective aspects of the story, told with just the right tone by capitalizing on but not unnecessarily enhancing the plot twist's inherent drama.

Equally credible is Martin's portrayal of the friendships that were forged years ago in medical school and have endured. Can they withstand the challenges each character faces? Their interactions are believable and endearing, imbued with familiarity, empathy, compassion, and stubbornness. They support each other even when they must do so from afar, and Martin's dialogue is crisp and witty.

Unfortunately, Martin contracted COVID in 2020 and suffered long-term symptoms, including parosmia, low blood pressure, and fatigue. Perhaps life imitated art a bit too perfectly because she says, "For my next novel, I think I will write about world peace."

Whatever topic she decides to tackle, if her next effort is as compelling and emotionally resonant as Doctors and Friends, it will also be well worth reading.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.