In this sequel to Miller\u2019s Out of Patients (2022), Dr. Norah Waters, approaching her 65th birthday, is planning to officially announce her impending retirement, which is scheduled to commence at the close of the year. The stress of caring for and worrying about patients has become exhausting. For the past five years, she\u2019s been in a relationship with Dr. Peter Calloway, a radiologist. The issue of retiring is a source of contention between them; Norah would like him to join her in retirement, but, although they\u2019re the same age, Peter isn\u2019t ready to step down. Meanwhile, over in Sun City, a sprawling retirement community outside Phoenix, Norah\u2019s feisty 91-year-old mother, Vivian Waters, is becoming restless with her sedate life. She\u2019s been calling Norah more frequently, and Norah realizes that it\u2019s time for a visit. She brings a small tape recorder, proposing that her mother begin recording stories about her unconventional and most interesting life. Vivian counters by informing Norah that she\u2019s joining a Scrabble club and is starting to train for a marathon. Still, she becomes quite enamored with the process of recording herself, resulting in a charming narrative device that allows Vivian to speak simultaneously to the machine and to readers. In alternating chapters, Norah narrates her own tale of professional frustrations, various challenges with her mother, and her relationship with Peter, frequently including the humorous text messages they exchange throughout the day (\u201cHey, you fell for me. Another gullible moment\u201d). A bit of medical infighting, a painful backstory, and an unexpected romance add poignancy and welcome zest to the leisurely paced drama. Miller\u2019s prose is breezy and sharply witty, vividly portraying the troublesome mother-daughter dynamics that have plagued the two leads over the years. Vivian is the more memorable of the two, a retired anatomy professor who\u2019s now a delightful, curmudgeonly elder convinced that her reclusive neighbor has killed her husband.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this sequel to Miller\u2019s Out of Patients (2022), Dr. Norah Waters, approaching her 65th birthday, is planning to officially announce her impending retirement, which is scheduled to commence at the close of the year. The stress of caring for and worrying about patients has become exhausting. For the past five years, she\u2019s been in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}