Monday, October 26, 2009

Female Doctor (New Chariot Library, 1961)

Surprised that our ol’ buddy Orrie didn’t publish this one under his Kay Addams pen name. It’s about a lesbian doctor, a woman’s doctor, a doctor who is a Hitt man with a vagina…sorta…she’s not six foot three and 190 pounds…

Dr. Jane. She lesbianisn is a guarded secret, and she lusts after many of her patients. She is lonely in the small upper NY state town where she practices.  One male friend, who loaned her $18K to open her office, pines for her madly but she keeps him at arm’s length…

Her 17-year-old recpetionist is having trouble at home so Jane offers her apartment — they sleep in the same bed. Jane dares not make a move on the girl, but she likes having the girl in bed next to her.

She makes the mistake with a patient she thinks she could be gay. The woman has had bad experiences with men. One night Jane takes her out drinking and then seduces her…the next day the patient is freaked out and decides to blackmail jane: pay up, or be exposed and have your business ruined.  First it’s a few hundred dollars, then 500, then a grand…soon Jane’s bank account is depleted and she no longer cares.

When her male friend — now dating her receptionist — finds out Jane is gay, he knows why she has been turning down.  he disons her and calls in the loan note.

Jane is backed up against a wall with nowhere to turn — the note, the blackmail, an instaiable urge for vagina…until she meets a certain man, a succesful used car salesman, who makes her trust men again…see, she was raped twice, as a teen and in college by a boy she tought loved her…she doesn’t think any men are good until she meets a good one…

Not bad. Somewhat slow at first.  The best parts may be when Hitt slips in some politics — at times Jane muses on how the government should spend tax money on universal health care instead of bombs…topical then and now, it seems.  Jane, despite her lack of ethics in some matters, refuses to perform abortions because she is pro-life and believes the babies can be adopted by good families.

The novel also comments on alcoholism.  Jane, like many Hitt heroes and heroines, is a lush, her favorite neat Scoth.  She loses a patient in the OR at the hospital and she’s had a few before going in — this almost gets her expelled from the hispital and losing her license.  She knows she has a drinkling problem and tries to fight it.  Perhaps the love of a good man will suffice for the urges of booze and pussy?

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