First published 2021
Young Martin Arrowsmith spends his time in rural America paging through Gray's Anatomy in the office of the town's alcoholic doctor, where he works as an assistant. After earning his medical degree, Dr. Arrowsmith faces multiple career paths. He could become a quiet country physician, work grueling hours at a big city public hospital, pursue pharmaceutical research at a major laboratory, or dedicate himself to finding cures for tropical pandemics. Each direction brings new mentors, friends, and enemies into his life. Every failure teaches him what to avoid in his next attempt. Lewis crafts a sharp satire of human ambition set during modern medicine's dawn, wielding surgical precision in his humor. The first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature creates a vivid gallery of amusing characters as Martin navigates his professional journey toward personal fulfillment.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, academic
Vibes: sharp, thought-provoking, vivid
Tropes: career-path, failure-to-success, mentor-mentee
Setting: Rural America
Period: Modern
Audio CD · Brilliance Audio