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Dr. Elmer Whatley has spent a lifetime caring for the minds of others. Now, in his nineties, with his beloved wife gone, his son lost, and his own memory beginning to slip, the old psychiatrist finds himself haunted by grief, medical doubt, and the enduring question of whether a life of service can ever make peace with its failures.
Set in Palo Alto across decades of change, The Old Doctor moves between the early years of Elmer’s career, his marriage to the brilliant and courageous nurse Lillian, the tragedies that shape their children, and the uneasy twilight of a physician who can still diagnose others more easily than he can face himself. Hospitals, courtrooms, family dinners, psychiatric offices, and quiet suburban rooms become the backdrop for a deeply human story about medicine, marriage, loss, faith, and moral responsibility.
Tender, richly detailed, and emotionally searching, The Old Doctor is a multigenerational literary novel about aging, memory, and the people who remain with us long after they are gone.