Mrs. Doctor: A Review
In Mrs. Doctor, Mercy Anim weaves a tale of intrigue involving the childhood and adolescent life of Lucy in early, post-independence Ghana. The period was the late 1950's through the 1970's. The reader is then smoothly and seamlessly transitioned to the United States, where the emotional and financial vicissitudes of Lucy's life continue.
In the first half of the book, the reader is taken through a complex melange of emotions, ranging from disgust at the brazen exploitation of girls and women by people with wealth and authority (exclusively men) to the cunning methods used by Lucy to thwart these men and avoid becoming a victim of their sexual exploits. There are vices galore: rape, attempted rape, adulterous affairs, and other forbidden amorous relationships. Lucy is not always the innocent bystander. She navigates these social booby traps with aplomb, eventually falling in love with, getting married to, and immigrating to the U.S. to join her young physician husband.
While living in Ghana as a child and young adult, Lucy had considered the US to be the ultimate Paradise on earth. Unfortunately, her expectations of a happy middle class life in the U.S. prove illusory, as she struggles to raise a young family with scant financial resources and even more meager emotional support from her detached and adulterous husband. The details of their loveless marriage, devoid of recreational sex (they are not staunch, orthodox Catholics) evoke in the reader a good dose of sympathy for this emotionally battered wife. Amazingly, the marriage survives in spite of these difficulties, and there is just enough procreative sex to have three children, who turn out rather well adjusted. Lucy eventually finds her own identity by founding and managing a successful Child Care Center.
Mrs. Doctor is well written.
Mercy Anim has produced a first novel that packs a legion of human emotions and experiences into 207 pages of entertaining reading. Her fans, this reviewer included, will be waiting in earnest for her next novel.
L. K. Essandoh, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Assistant Professor of Medicine in Cardiology at John's Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"A captivating tantalizing and inextricable mix of fact and fiction makes Mrs. Doctor hard to put down. The backdrop of the classic human struggle between moral values and social pressures throughout the book proviides valuable lessons and make the book and excellent read for men and women of all ages.
Peter K. Lemaire, Ph. D Professor of Physics, Central Connecticut State University.
"Anim creates a strong role model in Lucy. She represents the strenght found in all women."
Kate Smith London.
MRS. DOCTOR: One Woman’s Courage to Change Her Destiny by Mercy Ama Anim (AuthorHouse, 2005)
I could imagine Mama saying, “Lucy, you couldn’t become a doctor but you sure married one. It’s close enough. I’m very, very proud of you, Lucy. You made it.”
This debut novel, loosely based on the author’s life, simmers with the lusty courage of a woman whose story represents a global struggle. Lucy is not about to be defined or controlled by men, though the gender battles she faces are considerably different in her native Africa than those her modern American sisters have confronted. Enduring beatings and sexual abuse at an early age, she forms an identity around her ability to play men of means for spending money and other luxuries. Following her physician husband to the United States, Lucy realizes she needs more to sustain her sense of self. She discovers the depth of her own determination as she nurtures a dream born of her circumstances and skills: running her own day care business. That this evolution relegates being “Mrs. Doctor” to a small compartment of an expanding life matures Lucy’s marriage, her perspective, and her goals.
Written in the first person, this novel has the passionate immediacy of an honest, often raw memoir. Anim packs a great deal of emotion, pride, and strength into her straightforward, compelling story; you’ll be convinced Lucy is utterly real.
